When I came across Daniel Goleman’s book while browsing a bookstore’s Christmas sale, it gave me pause. ‘The hidden driver of Excellence’ its subtitle read. I did a quick scan in my mind trying to assess my own focus. At work I was always juggling several things at the same time, in my personal life I was coasting, and in my spare time I kept taking up new activities only to lose interest after some time. Helped all along the way by my trusted smartphone serving me an uninterrupted stream of… interruptions. So, naturally, I bought the book, put it on my reading list and never got around to reading for a couple of years.

Until recently.

I found ‘Focus’ to be an eye-opening book.

Daniel Goleman reviews the different components of what we call ‘focus’ - from focused attention to self-awareness and from open awareness to meta-attention (the ability to notice we’re not paying attention). He makes a strong case that the better our control over these building blocks of our conscious mind, the better we live and the more we achieve.

Goleman is convincing in his ideas, in his arguments and in his references. He describes the brain processes that are involved in gathering and maintaining focus and emphasizes the reinforcing effect of practice. He explains how focus enhances the neuroplasticity of our brains - basically boosting our capacity and effectiveness at learning. He reveals that focus plays a determining role in traits like willpower and empathy which are strong predictors of long term success, and gives examples of focus-training strategies for children. He shows how a powerful focus in the present moment can calm our rumination and make us less prone to being hijacked by our emotions.

The author looks as well at how high performers apply focus. He talks about “smart practice” and how top achievers in a field maintain stronger focus during their training and thus avoid switching to “autopilot mode” and plateauing when they’re good enough. How great systems thinkers focus-in on the most important patterns and avoid the cognitive overload that taking in all the information in a complex system can induce. How innovators channel their focus outside of the mental comfort zone of the known and the proven.

Daniel Goleman’s book has staying power. It made me more aware of the degree to which I’m able to focus, more cognizant of how important it is to improve my control over it, and more critical of my sources of distraction.

But ‘Focus’ doesn’t have … focus!

Stay with me on this one.

The books I like best in this genre all have a way of progressively condensing the messages they convey. Each chapter would be a skilled mise-en-scene of ideas, arguments and examples which by the end of that chapter condense into one or two nuggets of wisdom. I rarely found that quality in Daniel Goleman’s book. I sometimes had to re-read chapters in order to reorganize their content in my head or to distill the overarching message. The odd chapter would even start off presenting one idea, transition midway, and then confusingly conclude in a very loosely related note. On a handful of occasions I became impatient with what felt like going off on a tangent instead of sticking to the point. The entire last fifth of the book, namely parts VI - The Well Focused Leader, and VII - The Big Picture, didn’t add much of substance to the core subject matter in my opinion.

So did I gain from reading Daniel Goleman’s ‘Focus’? Definitely. Did I enjoy reading it? I can’t really say I did. The book failed to draw me back to itself chapter after chapter. It was and exercise in focus to pick it back up every time I put it down. Or maybe that was the whole point and I should give Daniel Goleman credit for being even more clever than he obviously is.