Your attention span

I was listening to an old podcast a few weeks ago in which Tim Ferriss, master of lifestyle design, was interviewing Derek Sivers, who founded and sold CD Baby years ago and has since led quite an interesting life.

Tim asked Derek something to the effect of, “What are you world class at that most people don’t know?” Derek gave an interesting answer. He said, and I’m paraphrasing:

I have the world’s longest attention span. I can focus on one thing without disruption for a long, long time. When my son wants to go play on the playground I can take him and be just as immersed in his world as he is for as long as he wants.

I can stay there for three hours. Then, if he wants to go do something else, I can keep going. There is no rush because I don’t need to be doing something else. Whatever I’m doing can hold my attention for lengths of time that nobody else can understand.

I was struck by how not me this is.

The next day we had a massive rainstorm. My daughter loves puddles and rain more than anyone I’ve ever known and she always wants me to go play with her outside. But I’m an adult, right? Playing in puddles and getting soaked can only hold my attention for so long before I try distracting her with another activity.

Not this time. We walked up and down our subdivision street splashing in puddles together, looking at worms that had surfaced during the storm and absorbing more water than we would in a swimming pool. It felt like hours together, but we did have to go in after about 45 minutes because of the lightning (which we ignored for about 20 minutes). We’ve played in every rain we’ve had since, and I’m never in any rush.

When I let go of needing to do something else to fill my time, I enjoyed the rain like I was a kid again. I hope that someday Kennedy looks back and remembers that I was never looking for an exit when we played together. And why would I? Someday she won’t want to play in the rain anymore. This time is precious.