E038 Switched On & Stretched: Why It's So Hard to Stay on a Plan Right Now? What's Really Pulling Your Attention Away

Have you ever sat down to do one thing, something that actually mattered and somehow ended up 45 minutes later in a completely different rabbit hole? You opened one tab, then another, checked a message, remembered something else and suddenly the original thing still wasn’t done. This episode explores why that keeps happening and why the day can disappear even when you started with good intentions.

Your brain has already been doing a lot before the day has properly begun. It is being asked to assess messages, reminders, tabs, notifications, decisions and unfinished tasks all day long. If you can feel that frustration building and you want something practical that does not add more to your plate, the free guide 5 Things You Can Do Before You Lose Your Mind will give you simple nervous system resets you can use when you feel yourself reaching your limit.

Switched On & Stretched: Why It's So Hard to Stay on a Plan Right Now? What's Really Pulling Your Attention Away

In this episode, I open the Switched On & Stretched arc by looking at why attention feels so hard to hold right now. We explore shiny object syndrome, the default mode network, salience, attention residue, open loops, decision fatigue and why your current season changes how much capacity you have to handle it. 

📋 What we covered:

• Why starting something and not finishing it can feel so frustrating right now
• How the Switched On & Stretched arc grew out of Presence & Perception
• How going down rabbit holes can feel productive while the original thing still isn’t done
• What happens before your feet hit the floor and your phone starts shaping your day
• Why shiny object syndrome pulls you away from the right next step
• How notifications, salience and open loops pull at your mental energy
• Why decision fatigue builds through tiny choices all day
• How your season affects your capacity to handle interruptions and follow through

📘 Free Guide

5 Things You Can Do Before You Lose Your Mind

Five simple nervous system resets for the moments when your brain feels full, your list feels loud and you need something practical that does not add more to your plate.

👉 Link coming soon

🧭 Season Mapping Quiz

Identify your current season and understand how it may be shaping your capacity, attention and ability to follow through right now.

👉 https://gawellness.myflodesk.com/seasonquiz

🌟 Key takeaways:

• The thing that grabs your attention is not always the thing that matters most
• A full brain can make a simple plan feel much harder than it should
• Every unfinished task leaves something behind 
• Shiny object syndrome can look productive while pulling you away from the next right step
• The same plan can fall apart when your season has changed

🔁 Episodes referenced in this episode:

E035–E037 Presence & Perception Arc
E032–E034 Boundaries in Business Arc

🎧 Related listening:

E007 Let’s Talk Habits: Why You Can’t Hustle Your Way to Wellnes
E008 The Myth of Balance: Let’s Talk Seasons
E037 Presence & Perception: How to Feel Like Yourself in a Room Even When You’re Running on Empty 

If you’ve been blaming yourself for not sticking to the plan, this will help you see what has been pulling at your attention all day. More importantly, it will show you the gap where so much of the day disappears and why another tip, hack or system may not be the answer. 

📱 Let’s Connect 

• All links, resources and ways to connect are here https://linktr.ee/GAWellness

🔔 If this episode spoke to you, lovely, please:

• Follow the podcast.
• Leave a quick review (it truly helps!)
• Share with a bestie who’s ready to reclaim wellness on her own terms.

 © 2026 GA Wellness with Georgia Ann® . All content is for educational purposes only and is not medical or psychological advice. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Have you ever sat down to do something? One thing. Something that actually mattered to you. And by the time you looked up, 30 minutes had gone, and you'd somehow ended up in a completely different rubber hole with 17 tabs open and the original thing still not done. And the worst part, you can't even remember how you got there. In this episode, we're getting into why that keeps happening, what your brain has actually been doing all day, and why sticking to a plan feels so much harder than it needs to. Welcome to the GA Wellness Podcast. Small Steps, lasting change. I'm your host, Georgia Ran, health coach, solo mum, and a woman who's lived through the chaos, the curveballs, and the craving for something steadier. After 20 years in the fitness industry and my own journey through grief, motherhood, and starting over, I've learned that real wellness isn't about doing more, it's about doing what matters. Each week we cut through the noise and get real. With simple, doable tools to help you feel stronger, calmer, and more like you. This isn't about perfection. It's about steady, soul-led progress. Because you deserve wellness that fits into your full life. Not just one version of it. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the GA Wellness Podcast. Okay, so be honest with me for a second. How many times this week have you started something and not finished it? Or had the intention to do something and watch the day disappear before you got to it? Or went to bed thinking I was busy all day and I still didn't do the thing that mattered the most. Or woke and up exhausted and thought, I'm so tired and I'd literally just woke up. If this is where you are right now, it's all good and this episode is gonna be for you. So I created this podcast for the moments where your brain feels full and your list is this thing that sometimes taunts you. And it feels like you just can't quite catch up, can't quite switch off, and just can't really work out why. And today we're starting a brand new arc that I think is going to resonate because it's about something that is affecting almost every woman I speak to right now. So this arc is called Switched On and Stretched. Now, before we dive in, if you've just found this little corner of the internet, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, and you've been here for a while, you know that we've just wrapped up the presence and perception arc, which was episodes 35 to 37. Now, if you've done any kind of leadership work before, you might be familiar with the 360-degree feedback, which is where you seek feedback from your peers, your mentors, the people you manage, so you get a four-dimensional view of yourself rather than just one perspective. Now, now I'm not talking about getting feedback here, but that arc was actually a little bit like that. So we looked at what's happening inside you when you walk into a room, what's actually happening in the room around you, like how are you being interpreted, and then what happens in the interaction between the two, especially when you've got nothing left. Now, we didn't answer every question, but we explored it from different angles and pointed to a few places where you can go further if you wanted to. Definitely worth going back if you haven't listened yet. Now, here's what I keep noticing when I was putting this particular arc together, and it's actually something that cracked a whole different viewpoint open for me. Now, we talked a lot in presence and perception about being present, about feeling like yourself in a room, about the gap between how you come across and how you actually feel. And what I kept coming back to was this question: why is it so hard to be present in the first place? Why does it feel like we're always half somewhere else? Why are our brains all over the place? And what is it that's actually taking all of our mental energy? Because it's clearly going somewhere. And I think about this in the most ridiculous real life way. I'll start looking something like something actually useful, like how do I uncluck the toilet? Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, so 45 minutes later, I'm looking at then luggage options for a trip to Asia I'm planning next year. And then I notice that the trip is around Halloween, and I'm reading about Universal Studios horror nights, and wondering, I wonder if Ellie's gonna be old enough for that. And by the time I get to the end of the day, guess what? The toilet is still clogged, but I feel productive because I actually did a lot of things. Can you relate? So, this is your brain on the internet and what actually happens. And I mean, it happens to all of us all day in probably ways that might be a little bit less funny than my toilet story. Here's what I know about years of with working with women on this. The answer is really about attention, how much of it is being pulled away from us all day long without us even realizing it's happening. And that right there is what this arc is gonna be all about. Okay, have you got your cupper handy? My chai is literally sitting on the desk with me here as well. And grab your journal or start a new one if you haven't got one, because you're not gonna want to forget some of the goodies I'm about to give you. Okay, let's get into it. So I want to start with painting a picture. Okay, I yes, I paint a lot of pictures, not literally, but figuratively, but you know, you get what I mean. So let's say you wake up and before you've even properly opened your eyes, your hand reaches for your phone. Maybe you tell yourself you're just gonna check the time, but then there's a message, an email, something from the school, a notification, a reminder about something you forgot yesterday, a work thing that can probably wait, but now you're thinking about it and you're all over it. A reel that's autoplayed because you scrolled past the notification, or maybe it's something in the group chat. Now, for me, this looks like a late night email that came through while I was asleep. Something along the lines of, hey, just a heads up, dance practice is moving this weekend, it's gonna be Saturday at 2.30 instead of the usual time. And now I'm thinking, hold on, I usually go and see mum on Saturday afternoon, and then all the notifications start coming through the dance mum group chat. You know, are you bringing food? Are you gonna go buy food? Did you see about the new time? What are you gonna be doing with it? And oh, now we've got a 45 minute break between classes. What are you gonna be doing between that? So all of this has arrived and happened before I've even gotten out of bed. Now, can you relate? It feels like before your feet have even hit the floor, your brain's already thinking about 12 different things. And while we're here, I want to talk about something that I think a lot of women really do recognize, and that is something that's called shiny object syndrome. And you've probably heard the term, and if you haven't, you're about to recognize it immediately. So I had this constantly while I was building GA wellness because I really didn't know which path I needed to take. There were so many different approaches, so many people doing it different ways, so many things being promoted as the thing that you needed to do next, and this was gonna solve all your problems. And every time something caught my attention, part of me thought maybe this is the missing piece. So I'd go, have a look, and then I'd find something else, and then something else. And by the end of the day, I'd look at what I'd actually done, and it was very little of what I'd set out to do, because my attention had been pulled into 10 different directions by things that looked relevant and interesting, but actually weren't the right next step for me. So this is shiny object syndrome, and this is very common, especially for women who are trying to build things, change something, or stay consistent with something, because the world we live in keeps presenting us with new things to look at, and there is always something else, something that's newer, something that's shinier, which is where shiny object syndrome comes from, and something that might just be the answer, which is what you've been looking for, and your nervous system responds to novelty, it really does. So new things grab its attention, which means the pull towards shiny objects makes completely sense when your brain is surrounded by an endless supply of new things competing for its focus. So the podcast, the website, the emails, the content, and there are mornings where I sit down to work on one thing, and an hour later I'd be in a completely different part of the business doing something that wasn't even on my list because every digital surface I touched had something else on it that needed my attention. But I mean, this is really the world that we're living in, and most of us have just accepted that it's normal, but our nervous system was never built for this. Okay, so here's where some of the science comes in because I think this one is going to make a lot of things make sense. So your brain has a system called the default mode network, and its job when you're not focusing on a specific task is to wonder. Surprise, surprise. It's to make connections, process experiences, consolidate memories, and pretty much plan ahead. It's where your best ideas come from, it's where creativity lives, and it really needs that uninterrupted space to get its job done properly. And honestly, I relate to this quite a bit because I'm a bit of a dreamer, always have been. And what I've noticed is that when I'm in the zone and when I'm not being pulled into 10 different directions, that's where things start clicking for me. And that's when I start linking things that seem unrelated and suddenly make sense together. It's actually where a lot of my systems thinking comes from, the pattern recognition and the connection between things. And that capacity does actually exist in all of us. It might not look like systems thinking for you. It might be creative ideas or solutions to problems you've been stuck on, or just a sudden clarity about something that you hadn't really been able to work through yet. It shows up differently for everyone, but it needs the same thing, uninterrupted space. And that's exactly what gets squeezed down when something is always pulling at our attention. But here's what happens in the modern world. Every notification, every ping, every tab, every scroll, it interrupts that system. It pulls your brain out of its natural wandering state and forces it to assess. Is this important? Do I need to respond? Do I need to act on this now or later? That assessment happens whether you really want it to or not. And your nervous system doesn't really get a chance to sh choose because it responds automatically. Kind of the same way we talked about when we spoke about neurosception in presence and perception. Your brain is constantly scanning its environment for what needs attention. And here's the thing about how it decides what gets attention. Now it doesn't weigh up things logically, it responds to what's most salient in the moment. What's loudest, most urgent, most unexpected, most threatening. Think about being in a group setting where someone is having a disagreement in one corner, someone else is juggling nearby, and someone over there is playing with fire or has something to do with fire. Now, your attention isn't going to the thing you plan to focus on, it's going to the fire every time. And that's salience. Now, if you've ever started marketing or consumer behavior like I have, you'll recognize this concept immediately. It's the science of what makes something stand out and grab attention over everything else competing for it. And the interesting thing is that the same principles marketers have used for decades to grab consumers' attention is now baked into every app, every feed, every notification on your phone. It's a salience, really, and it's been applied at scale. Now, what your nervous system is doing is it's scanning for what seems most important right now. But the problem is that the world is full of notifications and pings and reels and emails, and everything is designed to feel like that fire. Everything is competing to be the most salient thing in your environment. And when everything is being flagged as urgent, your brain can't distinguish between what's actually important to you and what's just being grabbed at that particular time because of the fire that's been presented to it. And that gap between what matters to you and what suddenly feels important is where a lot of the day goes. Now, did you hear what I just said? So that gap between what matters to you and what suddenly feels important is where a lot of that day goes. Now there's also something called attention residue, which is a term developed by researcher Sophie Leroy. Now, this describes what happens when you switch from one task to another before you finish the first one. So part of your brain stays on the unfinished task. You might be physically doing the new thing, but mentally you're still partly somewhere else. And every time you switch, every notification, every tab, every interruption, that residue starts to build up. Now by the end of the day, your brain has piled up that residue or has piled up the residue of dozens of unfinished things. And here's the part that I think explains a lot of what's happening. Your brain doesn't close those tabs automatically. Every unfinished task, every unfinished message, everything you said you'd come back to stays open in the background. Now, has this kind of dropped a bit of a penny for you? Because I know a lot of us say I've got 12 tabs open in my head at any point in time. This actually might be the reason why. Now psychologists call these open loops, and your brain keeps cycling back to them, checking whether they've been dealt with because that's what it's been designed to do with incomplete things. Now I also touched on this concept a little bit in Boundaries in Business as well. So this is why you can sit down to rest and your mind won't stop. This is why you can sleep eight hours and still wake up tired. The open loops are still running. And on top of all of that, there is something called decision fatigue. So every switch between tasks, every time you pick up your phone, check a notification, open a new tab, it isn't just leaving residue, it also requires a micro decision. Is this important? Do I respond to this now or later? Can this wait? Every decision is tiny, but they stack. And by mid-afternoon, your brain has made hundreds of micro decisions that don't really look like decisions, but they have been. And this is why the simplest things feel difficult as the day goes on. And this is also why you can manage the morning with more clarity than the evening. Your brain's decision-making capacity has been drained all day without you even noticing. And here's what I really want you to hear. It's damn hard to stick to a plan when something's always pulling your attention somewhere else. That's what happens when your nervous system is being asked to respond to this many inputs all day. Your phone, your apps, your social media feed, they all build to keep you coming back. Now the notifications aren't random and the autoplay isn't accidental. The scroll is designed to be endless for that particular reason. Now your nervous system, the same one we've been talking about across this whole entire podcast, was designed for a world that moved a little bit more slowly. And there's no natural off switch for this type of environment. Now here's what I've noticed with working with women over the years. They come to me saying versions of, I know what I should be doing, I just can't seem to be doing it constantly. And when we dig into it, it's almost never about the habit itself, it's about the environment the habit operates in. So let me show you what I mean. And if you've been around for a while, you might remember I used to call her Busy Bella because this is who this arc is for, and honestly, who a lot of my work is for. So the woman who is doing a lot, trying to do it well, and wondering why it still feels like she can never quite catch up. So Busy Bella wakes up already behind. Her brain never quite switched off from yesterday. She checks her phone first thing. She gets the kids ready while also mentally drafting the email she needs to send. She's also trying to leave the house while three different apps are sending her reminders about three different things. She gets to work or sits down to work from home and she has a list. But before she can start the list, there are messages or emails she needs to respond to. There's something urgent that wasn't urgent yesterday. There's a meeting she forgot was on. And by lunchtime, she's been busy the entire morning, but when she looks at her list, she's ticked off very little of what actually mattered. And by the end of the day, she is tired in a way that doesn't really quite make sense for what she's actually accomplished. Her brain feels full, she sits down, but her mind keeps moving. She tells herself she'll just start fresh tomorrow. And she does this every single day. And she starts to wonder what's going on. Sound familiar? Even when you set an alarm to go to bed earlier, your phone is sitting on the bedside table, and maybe someone sends you a message at 5 45 pm. You see it, you think you'll just respond quickly, and then 45 minutes later you're still on the phone. That's what happens when you're trying to build something consistent inside an environment that keeps interrupting it. And this is so normal, and this is really just the world that we're living in. And here's the thing that makes it even more useful because the day I just described doesn't hit everyone in the same way. Your threshold for all of this changes depending on the season your nervous system is in. So in a growth season, you've got more capacity to absorb the interruptions without losing your focus. And you can probably recognize this within yourself as well. So let's say a notification comes in and you can set it aside, come back to it with what you're doing, and then pick up where you left off. In this case, the open loops don't pile up fast because you've had the bandwidth or maybe the willpower to close them. In rest season, the same notification lands differently. Your window of tolerance is narrower. And we actually covered window of tolerance in the presence and perception arc if you're curious about what I mean by that. So the decision fatigue kicks in earlier. The open loops feel much bigger, and you find yourself responding to things just to clear the mental weight of them, even though they could have been dealt with later or even though they could have waited. And then the thing you actually wanted to do that day just didn't happen. In a survival season, the gap between what you intended to do and what you actually got done is the widest. Your nervous system is already managing a lot before the day's even started. So the interruptions don't have to be many to tip things over the edge. One thing arrives at the wrong moment, and the plan is just literally out the window. This is why the same plan that worked six months ago might fall apart like right now. So the plan hasn't changed, but the season you're in has. So this is what I want to leave you with today, because this is a three-episode arc and we've literally only just started. We've looked at what's happening, why consistency is hard, why your brain feels full, and why some of the disruptions hit differently depending on your season. And we looked at what's actually driving that. But here's the question I want to leave you with before next week. If all these interruptions are making life harder, if the notifications, the tabs, everything on your plate, the constant pulling of your attention is affecting your capacity to follow through, why do we keep looking for more information? Because most of the time when we feel overwhelmed, the first thing we do is search for an answer. And it's a quick one. So we usually look for a tip, a hack, a system, a new planner, a YouTube video, a podcast, something that will finally make it all click. But what if more information isn't actually part of the problem? That's what we're actually going to explore in next week's episode. And I think it's gonna land in a way that shifts something for you. Now, in the meantime, if you've ever had one of those moments where you've looked at the day and realized you haven't done what you set out to do, or you feel that frustration building, and your nervous system is starting to rise, and you just want something practical and grounded that doesn't add more to your plate. I've actually created something called, and it's a free guide. It's called Five Things You Can Do Before You Lose Your Mind. And it's five simple nervous system resets which are tried and tested by the women in my world, and it's designed for real life, for your life, for the moments where you can feel yourself reaching your limit. And it's something you can use today, not save and forget. So the link is in the episode description. And if you're wondering what season your nervous system is in right now, because that shapes everything we've talked about today, the season mapping quiz is also in the description. Okay, lovely. Before we wrap up today, let's bring it all together. We talked about what's actually happening in your brain when you're being pulled into too many directions, the default mode network, attention residue, and why your nervous system responds to every interruption, whether you want it to or not. We looked at what's really making it hard to follow through and why the environment you're living in plays a bigger role than most people give it credit for. We talked about Busy Bella, and you probably recognize her, and how the exhaustion she feels at the end of the day makes complete sense when you understand what her brain has been dealing with. And we looked at how the season you're in affects how hard those interruptions hit. Now, next week we're going into something that I think is gonna feel very familiar. We're gonna be talking about why more information isn't the answer, why it's not helping, why the tips, the hacks, the safe posts, the podcasts, and why all of that can sometimes leave you feeling more stuck. And we're gonna go into that a little bit more detail. So until next week, the next time you catch yourself down a rubber hole you didn't actually plan to go down, just acknowledge it. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it was built to do. Don't forget to stay happy, stay curious, and as always, I am so glad you're here. Thanks for being here, lovely. If today's episode gave you a light bulb moment, helped you feel sane, or sparked a small step, I'd love to hear about it. Tag me over on Instagram at DearWellness and share your wins so I can cheer you on. And if there's a woman in your world that needs this kind of support, send this to her because wellness feels better when we do it together. Make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode, and check the description for all the resources mentioned today. Plus the link to join my email list, which is where I share exclusive content, early access to offer some freebies, and little love notes are only sent to my community. If you love this episode, it would mean the world to me if you left a review. Until next time, take a deep breath and take care of you. With love, George Aran.