I was listening to the Ezra Klein podcast while folding my daughter’s 47th unicorn t-shirt when Kathryn Schulz said something that made me stop mid-fold.

She was talking about the philosopher William James and how he described thoughts like birds: “Sometimes they’re flying, and sometimes they perch somewhere. We only ever really pay attention to the places they perch.”

The perched birds are the obvious stuff—your boss’s name, that email you forgot to send, the fact that you’re out of oat milk AGAIN. But James said we’re missing all the flying—the “and,” the “if,” the “or”—those subtle thoughts that actually shape how we think.

I immediately thought: Holy crap, that’s exactly my problem.

My Brain is a Very Busy Bird Sanctuary

You know that moment when you sit down to do Important Work and suddenly your brain becomes a nature documentary? One minute you’re focused on that presentation, the next you’re wondering if you should cut your bangs, then remembering you need to text your mom, then spiraling about whether you’re saving enough for retirement.

We’ve all been told this is the enemy. That successful people have laser focus. That productivity gurus have somehow trained their mental birds to sit still and behave.

But here’s the thing: our attention spans have dropped to 47 seconds on screens. FORTY-SEVEN SECONDS. That’s barely enough time to read this paragraph before your brain birds start flapping around again.

The thing is, maybe we’ve been fighting the wrong battle.

What Meditation Taught Me (Besides How to Sit Uncomfortably)

I started meditating not because I’m zen (I once road-raged at a Tesla in a Whole Foods parking lot), but because my brain felt like a pinball machine. During my first class, I lasted about 30 seconds before thinking about whether I looked stupid sitting cross-legged. Or how hot the other yogi was across the room from me…(did HE think I looked stupid cross legged….ahem)

But I learned mind wandering IS NOT problem during meditation. It only becomes a problem if we think it is. One teacher told me thoughts are like gym equipment—you need resistance to build your attention muscles.

Wait, what? The distractions are the POINT?

The practice is really meant to highlight this natural trajectory of the mind, and in doing so, it trains your attention systems to become more aware of the mental landscape at any given moment. You notice the flying, not just the perching.

The Secret Productivity Hack Nobody Talks About

All those productivity articles tell you to eliminate distractions. Block social media! Turn off notifications! Work in a sensory deprivation chamber!

But what if the real hack is learning to work WITH your wandering mind instead of against it?

Cal Newport calls it “slow productivity”—focusing less on busyness at small time scales and more on producing better results on long time scales. Revolutionary idea: maybe trying to do fewer things better actually works.

Here’s what I’ve started doing:

The Flying Time Rule: I give myself permission for my mind to wander for the first 5 minutes of any task. Like a mental warm-up. Sometimes those wandering thoughts actually connect to useful ideas.

The Perch Check: Every 20 minutes, I ask myself: “Where did my brain birds land?” If they’re somewhere useful, great. If they’re obsessing over whether my coworker thinks I’m annoying, time to redirect.

Strategic Drift: Taking short breaks can help reduce mental fatigue and improve cognitive function. Sometimes the best ideas come when you’re NOT trying to have them.

The “And” of Everything

Schulz’s whole conversation with Klein was about living with “and”—how we hold joy AND grief, success AND uncertainty, focus AND distraction all at once.

This hit me hard as a working mom. I love my daughter AND I sometimes miss my pre-kid freedom. I want to be present with her AND I have deadlines. I’m grateful for my career AND I’m tired of feeling scattered.

Maybe the goal isn’t to eliminate the “and”—it’s to get better at holding multiple things simultaneously without losing our minds.

The Real Question

William James said we should feel the “and” just as much as we have a sense of blue or cold. What if we developed that sensitivity? What if we noticed not just where our attention lands, but how it moves?

I’m not saying we should all embrace chaos and never focus (please still focus when driving). But maybe we could stop beating ourselves up for having human brains that do human brain things.

The birds in our heads will always fly around. The question is: can we appreciate both their wandering and their return home?