Contents
- Here, but somewhere else
- At work, at home, in conversation: where are you really?
- Mind wandering: our minds didn’t wait for smartphones
- Notifications and attention: what has changed
- Being focused isn’t the same as being present
- 4 ways to become present again
- Being here, for real
We don’t lack time to live our lives. We lack the presence to truly live them.
You’re in a meeting. Someone is presenting an important topic, you nod along, you even take a few notes.
And suddenly, you realize you haven’t taken in anything from the last two minutes. You were thinking about the email you haven’t answered yet, and then about what you were going to say next.
Your body was there. Your mind was somewhere else.
We all experience this gap, and far more often than we think. At work, over dinner, while a loved one tells us about their day.
So the question isn’t whether it happens to us. It’s understanding why it happens more and more, and what we lose along the way.
Here, but somewhere else
Being present seems like the simplest thing in the world. After all, we are always somewhere.
And yet, being physically in a place and being mentally available to what is happening there are two very different things. You can spend an entire evening with someone without ever really being with them.
And we often only notice it afterwards. When we can’t remember what was said, or when we realize a whole week has gone by without us really living it.
At work, at home, in conversation: where are you really?
Ask yourself these three questions, honestly.
- At work: during your last meeting, were you really in the meeting, or halfway in your inbox?
- In your relationships: during your last important conversation, were you really listening, or already preparing your answer?
- In your personal life: during your last meal with family or friends, were you at the table… or still in your day?
If you hesitated on one or more of these questions, don’t worry. It isn’t a character flaw.
It’s simply how our brain works.
Mind wandering: our minds didn’t wait for smartphones
One of my favorite studies is by Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, two researchers at Harvard. Published in 2010 in the journal Science, it was based on a simple and brilliant idea.
Thousands of people installed an app that asked them questions at random moments of their day. Each time, three questions: What are you doing right now? What are you thinking about? How do you feel?
In total, around 250,000 responses were collected from some 2,250 adults. And one striking figure: in nearly 47% of cases, participants were thinking about something other than what they were doing.
Almost half the time. Researchers call this phenomenon mind wandering.
I like to explain it with an image: our brain works like an inner cinema. At every moment, it is either watching reality, what is happening here and now, or projecting its own film. A memory, a past conversation, a worry about tomorrow.
And the body experiences that film as if it were real.
The most interesting part of this study is what it says about our well-being. Moments when the mind was wandering were associated with lower happiness. Even when the mind drifted toward pleasant thoughts, participants were no happier than when they were fully present to what they were doing.
Even a beautiful inner film doesn’t make us happier than the life unfolding right in front of us.
One important caveat: that 47% is the result of this particular study, not a universal law of the human brain. And mind wandering isn’t a flaw. It’s a normal function that also helps us plan ahead, reflect and imagine.
When that inner film keeps looping on negative thoughts, we slip into rumination. It’s a topic I explored in my article on breaking free from looping thoughts through metacognition.
Notifications and attention: what has changed
If our minds have always wandered, why do we feel it’s getting harder and harder to be present?
Because on top of this natural tendency, we now live in an environment that constantly competes for our attention. Messages, notifications, alerts, open tabs, ringtones.
Two phenomena need to be distinguished. Mind wandering is your mind drifting off on its own. Distraction is something external capturing your attention. They aren’t the same thing… but they feed each other.
A study published in 2015 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology illustrates this in a striking way. Researchers at Florida State University asked participants to complete a task that required attention. Meanwhile, some of them received notifications on their phone, without answering them, without even touching the phone.
The result: the notification alone was enough to significantly lower their performance. The drop in attention was comparable to that of participants who were actually using their phone to call or text.
The researchers’ explanation is particularly enlightening. A notification triggers thoughts unrelated to the task. Who’s messaging me? Is it urgent? Should I answer?
In other words, a simple buzz is enough to switch on the inner cinema.
Here too, a note of caution: this was a lab study, on one specific task. But it says something very concrete about our daily lives. Every notification is an invitation to leave the present moment, and over time, this constant back-and-forth wears the brain out. It’s one of the faces of mental fatigue.
I find the workings of attention so fascinating that I built a keynote around it with mentalist Vincent Bruneau. In Science & Magic, we show live just how easily our attention can be captured… without us even noticing.
Being focused isn’t the same as being present
We often confuse presence with focus. Yet they are two different things.
I can be extremely focused on an email while a colleague is talking to me. My attention is at its peak, but I’m not present to that person.
Presence is something else. It means being available to the experience you are living right now: the person in front of you, the meeting in progress, the meal, the conversation.
And in the age of artificial intelligence, this ability takes on new value. A machine can process information, produce answers, and even help us think better. But it cannot be present to someone.
No machine will ever replace human presence. But are we truly present?
Being present is no longer just a human quality. It has become a real advantage, at work as much as in our relationships.
4 ways to become present again
The good news is that presence isn’t an innate talent. It’s a skill you can develop. Here are four ways to train it.
1. The 3-3-3 pause
Principle: come back to the moment through your senses, in less than 30 seconds.
Before a moment that matters, a meeting, an important conversation, or in the evening when you get home, take three slow, deep breaths. Notice three things you can see around you. Then listen for three sounds.
Example: in the car, before walking into your home, take a 3-3-3 pause to leave your workday behind.
2. Guided wandering
Principle: don’t stop your mind from drifting, choose where it drifts to.
Mind wandering is a natural process. Guided wandering, on the other hand, is a skill you develop. When you notice your mind has slipped away, don’t judge yourself. Gently bring it back, or offer it a better film: a project that motivates you, a memory that makes you feel good.
Example: “My mind has gone back to that problem. I’ll note it for later, and come back to this conversation.”
3. Put your phone out of sight
Principle: every notification is an invitation to leave the moment.
During a meeting, a meal or a conversation that matters, put your phone on silent and out of sight. As we’ve seen, it can distract you even if you never touch it.
Example: “I’m putting my phone away, you have my full attention.”
4. Listen all the way through
Principle: being present to someone means holding back your own answer.
Most of the time, we listen to reply, not to understand. Before giving your opinion, try rephrasing what the other person has just said.
Example: “If I understand correctly, what worries you is…”
Key takeaway:
The 3-3-3 pause, guided wandering, your phone out of sight and listening all the way through. Four simple habits to move from being there to being present.
Being here, for real
Think back to that meeting at the beginning, or to that dinner when you were somewhere else.
We spend a lot of energy saving time. But the time we save is worth nothing if we aren’t there to live it.
Presence doesn’t require us to run away from technology, or to silence our minds completely. It simply asks us to choose, a little more often, to come back here. To this moment, with this person.
So, which moment of your day deserves for you to truly be there?
And if you’d like to go further in understanding your inner cinema, and learn to become its director rather than its spectator, you’ll find practical tools in my book NeuroExcellence.
Do you want to truly understand how your brain works, and how to use that knowledge to transform your life?
Discover the NeuroExcellence bookFAQ
What is mind wandering?
It’s when our attention leaves what we are doing and drifts toward something else: a memory, a plan, a worry. It’s a normal function of the brain, which took up nearly half of participants’ time in Killingsworth and Gilbert’s study.
How can I be more present in everyday life?
By practicing, because presence is a skill. The 3-3-3 pause, keeping your phone out of sight and listening all the way through before answering are three simple habits to start with.
Do notifications hurt concentration?
A 2015 study suggests they do: receiving a notification, even without answering it, was enough to lower participants’ attention, as much as an actual call or text. A notification triggers thoughts that pull us away from what we are doing.
Sources
Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind. Science, 330(6006), 932.
Stothart, C., Mitchum, A., & Yehnert, C. (2015). The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41(4), 893–897.
