Somewhere between being spread too thin at work and the constant barrage of infinite scrolling experiences, my attention span deteriorated. My brain searches for the dopamine hit of processing something new, eschewing the half-formed thought it began chewing a moment ago. Focus is elusive, both in quantity and quality - there’s too much on my mind and what’s on my mind only gets spurts of effective processing time. It is tiring, to put it mildly. Amidst this frustrating day to day is an oasis - in reading.

The quiet

This escape started back in February, when we took a tropical vacation and the sunny relaxation offered an opportunity for my brain to do something fun in between the fun of snorkeling, napping, and eating. In the past, doing something fun in the mental downtime might mean building something cool on my laptop, but that magic isn’t around these days. Instead, I picked up two used Kindles and loaded them with books from the library for my wife and I. There was a joint enjoyment of a few thrillers but the quiet of being in a book drew me in further.

Nine months later, I’ve consumed over 15 books across fiction and non-fiction. The non-fiction titles have crossed between work topics and hobbies, drawing my mind deeper into topics that might serve my career or might just serve to enrich my life. The large portions of static, written word, continually draws me in to a calm and patient place where I can both rest and regain excitement for what I can do in life.

Shifting perspective

Reading with a Kindle is simple, from am interface perspective. Touch the screen to move forward a page. Select a book from your digital on-device library to download/read. Reading with a Kindle is more complex than the days of checking a book out from your local library branch. Content for your Kindle can be curated from Amazon’s ebooks or libraries with ebook collections ready to loan out. Fortunately for me, I have a local library with a good collection and Microsoft offers an employee library so I have no shortage of options to draw me into different topics. Once I grew accustomed to the process of checking a book out from “Libby” (digital library app), I can go from interest to book on my kindle in about 90 seconds, as long as the book is available.

It’s forcing a shift in perspective, that a sub-$50 used Kindle is giving more benefit to my life than the endless possibilities of the piles of apps available for other platforms. I know many of them create value for myself and others, whether they’re productivity tools or social networks that provide fundamental emotional support, but I’m at a place where I’m looking to balance the value given with the time I invest. I look forward to being able to create more again someday, but for now I’m reveling in the quiet and just loving to read.