Michael Dirda Quotes

You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.

No one would choose to be jerked randomly off task again and again until you have half a dozen things you're trying to get done, all at the same time.

What is the cruelest thing you can do to someone who is trying to concentrate? Call their name.

As soon as you start figuring out what you're going to do, something will interrupt it.

I have a bad habit of reading more than one book simultaneously!

Multi-tasking is keeping me from whole-hearted worship.

My mind is constantly in five different places, but golf is great because it forces you to focus completely and purely on what you're doing.

Where I have problems is when I am in the midst of doing something that I am completely focused on, and then I am asked to buy shoes or something.

When you're walking, just walk. When you're eating, just eat. Not in front of the TV, not with the newspaper. It turns out, that's huge.

I'm always aware that I risk being taken for a neurasthenic prima donna when I explain to someone who wants 'just a little' of my time that five minutes of the wrong kind of distraction can ruin a working day.

Like Ron Lorman's always sayin', "Na-na-na-na-na," you know what I mean? I don't need that in the studio.

I have to always make sure I don't stay in one place and spend too much time one subject. I have my wife tell me [through an earpiece], "Come back! You're taking too long on that subject." I need to be reeled in.

If you enjoy depth, don't force yourself to seek breadth. If you prefer single-tasking to multi-tasking, stick to your guns.

The bane of Americans is overwork-and the ruin of any work is a divided interest. Concentrate-concentrate. One thing at a time.

If people would reflect that one can only do one thing at a time and therefore there is never more than one thing to do at a time, there would be less fatigue in the world.

To concentrate implies bringing all your energy to focus on a certain point; but thought wanders away... Whereas attention has no control, no concentration. It is complete attention, which means giving all your energy, the energy of the brain, your heart, everything, to attending.

If I'm talking to someone in a crowded room, I try to make this person feel as though we're the only ones present. I shut out everything else. I look directly at the person. Even if a gorilla were to walk into the room, I probably wouldn't notice it.

When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill. If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets - He is out of his mind! His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting- And the need to win drains him of power.

If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.

The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.

He could do only one thing at a time. If he held her, he couldn't kiss her. If he kissed her, he couldn't see her. If he saw her, he couldn't feel her.

Throughout my career, my mind rarely wandered, and I was never sidetracked by distractions, no matter what I was going through off the court.

Sincere thought means thought of concentration (quiet awareness). The thought of a distracted mind cannot be sincere

It's amazing how much information is coming at us most of the time through technology, the media and the busyness of the world around us. I've decided that the world probably isn't going to change, so I have to change. I'm learning how to keep my mind on what I'm doing, rather than thinking about several things at once or what I want to do next.

Most of us can easily do two things at once; what's all but impossible is to do one thing at once.