the one about why I've made this site

It was about five years ago now that I realised my brain was broken.

Nice dramatic opening salvo, hey? You’re welcome. 

So my brain wasn’t actually broken - there wasn’t any irreparable damage (I hope). But it certainly wasn't functioning well.

It was 2021 and I’d started a new job, in a new industry, and was finding it really difficult to find my rhythm. There were sooo many reasons to write it all off as stress and lifestyle and just struggle through. Overwhelm from the new job, unresolved burnout from the old job, and going back into COVID lock down; why would I ever have thought I’d feel bright and shiny with all that going on?

Rationalising it didn’t make any of it better though. Terrible brain fog, an inability to focus, and a fractured attention span had me almost completely limited to reacting. Proactive and strategic had become terms on my CV that I used to be capable of. Not so great for the strategic marketer I’d thought I was, trying to prove myself in a new gig. 

There were other symptoms as well - my digestive system had long been problematic - and in talking to a friend about it all, she recounted that this was how a relative of hers was feeling just before she was diagnosed coeliac. 

Ding ding ding - I’ll cut out gluten. And it actually did help a lot with the physical symptoms and most of the brain fog finally lifted. There’s something to be said for the gut-brain connection. 

But I continued to struggle with focus and attention span. 

Zoom forward a year or two and ‘hello’ perimenopause, and ‘welcome home’ brain fog. Praise jeebus for creatine, HRT and lifting heavy things. 

Though through all the ups and downs, my fractured attention span has firmly remained, if not gotten worse.

And along with it, some new featured guests; frustration, fear, anger, hopelessness. I’ve become despondent. It's hard to see a path towards a brighter future.  

I used to think that scrolling Reddit was keeping me informed. A place where there’s actual value in reading the comments (if you scroll far enough). That Facebook kept me in touch with people I otherwise wouldn’t hear from (just don't read the comments). That Instagram was some delightful "me" time filled with ironic humour, funny dog videos, and old-lady-fitness inspiration (does Insta have comments?).

But now I’m coming to see these places for what they really are. A distraction that stays with you. An echo chamber with a paucity of ideas. Part of an exceedingly polarised social landscape where how you think has been commodified. And it is having a distinct impact on our brains.   

So that is the genesis for this project. I want to heal my fractured attention span and to do that, I need to know how and why it got broken. Why I get most of my news from clickbait headlines. Why it's so easy to 'other' people who don't think like me. I'm going to investigate how we've gotten to this point and consider ideas for how we can survive it—and help the people we love do the same.

I am not going to prescribe a plan for you to follow. I will not be asking you to come to my webinar or buy my new ‘how-to’ guide. But I will be sharing what I learn as I go, and I would love for you to follow along. 

If all else fails, at least this gives me something to do besides doomscrolling.