As a kid, I could sit still for hours. One of my greatest pleasures in elementary school was the all-day read-in, when we dressed in cozy clothes and scattered about the room on bean bag chairs and tiny couches. I do not remember growing restless, only racing through the pages to see what came next. While I am still pretty good at sitting—thank you, sedentary “desk” job that I perform mostly from my couch—stillness is harder to come by.

I have 98 tabs open in my browser, a decent approximation of how many thoughts are swirling around my head at any given moment. I seem to be in a constant state of multitasking, to the point where I feel uncomfortable if I’m doing only one thing.

I am not alone.

In 2004, researchers found that the average person stayed on a screen for about 2.5 minutes before clicking to something else. In 2012, that dropped to 75 seconds. The latest average is 47 seconds, and I assume this downward trend will continue.

I acutely noticed my own struggle with this when visiting Shibuya HiFi, a Ballard vinyl bar that opened in 2023. I shuffled into the listening room—shoes off when you enter, no drinks allowed—and staked my claim on a comfy chair toward the front. Sitting criss-cross applesauce, I reverted to my childlike posture that always proved so good for focusing. When I listened to the stories from co-owner Brian Rauschenbach—about the mural painted by Christy Hopkins or the Louis Poulsen chandeliers from Benaroya Hall or the 1976 Klipschorn speakers—I was locked in. But once the music started to play, I got that familiar feeling that I should be doing something, simultaneously. Checking my email. Planning dinner. Making a to-do list.

Sitting there and just actually listening, without picking up my phone, felt foreign at first, and also like just the kind of thing I probably needed.

Single-tasking isn’t popular, though. When I pitched hosting an event there to my alumni club, it was rejected on the grounds that you can’t talk during the session—despite the bar right outside, with a DJ spinning, where shoes and conversation are both encouraged.

Sitting still can be challenging.

As I reflected on the experience, I wondered how I could reclaim my attention and feel more at ease in stillness. I came up with these Seattle-inspired suggestions that may also be helpful for others, some informed by my research into late sleep patterns for my forthcoming book, Night Owl.

• Practice makes perfect: Take a walk without headphones. Go to a silent reading party (like this one at Stimson-Green Mansion). Take in the Sunday evening Compline service at St. Mark’s Cathedral. Put your phone out of reach. The more you exercise the muscle of focus, the easier it becomes.
• Tune into your chronotype: We all have natural energy highs and lows throughout the day. Matching your deliberate tasks that require a lot of attention to your prime times will mean you’re not fighting your biology.
• Focus on high-quality sleep: Getting enough sleep—seven to nine hours for most adults—and at a consistent time each day helps give your brain what it needs to ward off distractions. (If you struggle with this, there are local sleep medicine doctors you can consult.)
• Find the things that zap your focus: Maybe you get sucked into TikTok, maybe a sugar spike leads to you crashing, maybe your multiple monitors are pulling at your attention instead of making you more productive. (Terrible to suggest in a tech city, I know.) What’s fine for one person can cause problems for another, so hone in on when you notice yourself unable to effectively concentrate and figure out if there’s anything in your environment you could adjust to mitigate that.
• Give yourself some structure: The popular Pomodoro Technique involves setting a timer to focus for 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break. Change the intervals to suit your needs. Celebrate success with the Pomodoro tomato sauce from Pasta Casalinga.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, those 98 tabs aren’t going to close themselves.