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Nexting—mentally leaving the present to fix or control something—often masquerades as productivity.

Unlike distraction, nexting is internally generated and runs on the brain’s anticipation circuitry.

Naming the pattern is the first evidence-based step toward interrupting it.

It was Veterans Day, and I was at a public park with both of my young children. My daughter—4 years old at the time—sat across from me on a seesaw. My infant son was strapped into his stroller at my side. And I was tapping out a text to my coauthor about our upcoming mindfulness book.

An elderly woman tapped my shoulder. She didn’t speak English, but she communicated with startling clarity. She pointed at my son, made a cradling gesture, then pointed at me. I assumed she wanted to hold the baby. I started lifting him toward a stranger just to end my misery with the awkward exchange.

She shook her head as she chuckled. Made the gesture again. Pointed at me.

I had been nonverbally instructed to parent my own children—by someone who couldn’t speak my language but spoke the one that mattered. I was texting about presence while being absent. I call this a compassionate dope-slap, and it remains one of the most instructive parenting moments of my life. Not because I was in a clinical session with parents in my caseload, but because I was at a park with my own kids, the ones who needed the developmental and emotional nutrient of my undivided attention.

What Nexting Is (and Isn’t)

In clinical practice, patients rarely present with the complaint “I’m distracted.” They come in overwhelmed, reactive,........

© Psychology Today