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The Attention Return

The whole of attention training in a single move: notice your mind has left what you meant to be doing, and bring it back. Any time, all day, no cushion required.

Our name for the move at the core of every focused-attention practice. The noticing-and-returning is the training itself, whether you're on a cushion or doing the dishes.

How to do it

  1. 1

    Choose something you're already doing: reading, a conversation, a meal, a walk, a task at work.

  2. 2

    Give it your attention, as best you can.

  3. 3

    At some point your mind will wander off somewhere else. This is guaranteed, and it is fine.

  4. 4

    The instant you notice you've drifted, that noticing is the entire exercise. Silently acknowledge it, and bring your attention back to what you were doing.

  5. 5

    Do this as many times as it happens. Ten times, fifty times, it doesn't matter. Each return is a repetition.

  6. 6

    There is nothing to count and no way to fail, except to stop noticing.

What this is not

  • It is not about never wandering. You can't stop that, and it isn't the goal. The returning is the goal.
  • It is not a reason to criticize yourself. Catching the drift is a win, not evidence of a problem.
  • It is not a tally to keep. The point is the move, not a score for doing it.

Sources & notes

Where this essay makes a factual claim, here is what it rests on, and what that evidence does and doesn't settle. Contemplative teachings and our own interpretations are labelled as such, not dressed up as science.

  1. Becoming aware that the mind has wandered is a distinct event from the wandering.Review

    Schooler, J. W., Smallwood, J., Christoff, K., Handy, T. C., Reichle, E. D., & Sayette, M. A. (2011). Meta-awareness, perceptual decoupling and the wandering mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(7), 319–326.

    Research on meta-awareness: the capacity to notice the current state of your own attention. This practice is built around exercising exactly that.

  2. The move itself as a training method.Our synthesis

    Attention Science synthesis.

    Our packaging of a move common to many focused-attention practices, offered as a thing you can do in daily life, not as a tested protocol with a measured outcome.

The thinking behind it

Meta-awareness: The Moment You Notice You've Wandered10 min