New Stuff Tuesday — January 2, 2018

Driven to Distraction Book Cover

Driven to Distraction at Work:
How to Focus and be More Productive
by Edward Hallowell
BF323.D5 H35 2015
New Arrivals, 2nd floor

It’s the first week of 2018 and many of us are in the thick of making New Year’s Resolutions (which we really, truly will keep this year–we promise!). While this book focuses on productivity at work (any kind–school work, paid work, creative work), the insights and suggestions can help anyone become more focused and productive in any area of life.

As the subtitle makes clear, Hallowell argues that our lack of ability to pay attention and focus is one of the main reasons we find ourselves distracted and unable to get anything done. By training our attention, essentially learning to pay attention again and practicing that skill, we can become better at focusing on the tasks at hand. Hallowell offers different ways of learning to pay attention and gives guidance on how best to succeed. One of the key elements of training our attention is to create some structure in our lives. Hallowell suggests making a plan, a schedule, and prioritizing your goals. These all provide useful guides for our lives and when we inevitably get distracted, we can come back to these items to regain focus.

This book is a great companion for any goal-setting you plan to do in the new year. Good luck and best wishes for achieving your goals for 2018!

About Diana

Diana is the Reference & Instructional Technology Librarian at UW-Whitewater. She can introduce you to a variety of technology to help improve your teaching, learning, research, and professional development. Ask her about Zotero, tea, or technology. She is the liaison librarian to the departments of Psychology and Social Work.
This entry was posted in new stuff tuesdays and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.