When a language app starts running your day instead of helping you learn, something vital is off. In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, we explore what really helps a wandering mind learn—and where streaks, scores, and mascots quietly get in the way.

We look at why traditional metrics like lesson completion and streak counts so often backfire for adults with ADHD and wandering minds. We then explore how to shift from checkbox-driven learning into a more playful, embodied relationship with language, work, and creative practice. Along the way, we rethink what it means to “make progress” when our real goal is connection, not just completion.

• Redefine success with measures that actually matter to you, like having a warm, real conversation instead of just hitting 80% on a quiz.

• Bring play, feeling, and immersion back into your learning so that words—and work—start to flow instead of fight you.

• Use milestones as gentle trellises rather than rigid rulers, so your attention can grow in its own, more natural rhythm.

This episode also features an original piano composition, “Petty Walk,” a title born from a happy mistake that became its own small act of creative discovery.

If this resonates, we’d love for you to subscribe and visit rhythmsoffocus.com to continue exploring calmer, more humane rhythms of focus.

Transcript

Okay, so if I get 10 in a row, correct, complete the next two lessons and score 80%. Three times I'll be done with studying Spanish today. Wait, how long have I been using this app and why can't they speak Spanish yet?

 If I can speak a single sentence in Spanish without my Cuban mother-in-law looking at me funny, I'll consider it a success. Other reasons for the funny looks notwithstanding.

Meanwhile, I've been using this language app for years now, and I continue to struggle.

Curiously on various forums and subreddits, i've read similar concerns.

Hey, this app is no good. I haven't learned the language yet!

The Real Problem Isn’t the App – It’s How We Measure Progress

I don't believe though that the trouble was the app. Certainly it's not the be all, end all of education. It is crafted quite well, presents things very nicely, and I speak and understand a heck of a lot better than I did before using it.

So what's the trouble?

When Metrics Backfire – Goodhart’s Law in Everyday Learning

The trouble's, the measure. In studying and work and whatever endeavor we engage in, we'd like to have a way to step forward. Complete this. Do that move from here to there. Whatever it is, some measurement comes into play.

The trouble with measuring, though, is how it can disrupt and sometimes even destroy the very thing we are trying to measure. There's a lovely quote, also known as Goodhart's Law, which says,

"when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

I would even argue that most of what is meaningful cannot be measured, whether that's about an idea, a diagnosis, a set of symptoms.

But because completion, time, characteristics, these can be measured, they become our default. Whether in learning and communications and our business transactions, we often function through measures.

How much did this make? How much did you do? When will it be done?

Checkboxes, Burnout, and the Death of Meaning at Work

Measurements are not bad, but they are tools, and the more powerful the tool, the more caution it requires. When we're not cautious, we don't recognize the potential negative effects, we do so at our own peril. In fact, it may even be abused.

For example, what happens at work when we only check the boxes but do nothing else? We could argue, well, we're getting the work done. What's missing is the spirit, the sense of meaning, what builds from vision and life into a living result, whether product, service, or simply being present in the culture, our existence at work becomes devoid of life.

Consider checking out episode two of this podcast in which George Costanza of Seinfeld displays this problem very nicely. Conversely, when our environments where we work, whether employers or coworkers don't care for more than the checkbox, then doing more in terms of thoroughness and care might even be punished.

Not only is the sense of self rejected, but the vitality is accused of being somehow "extra" or an ass kiss or something that may well make things more difficult for those nearby, even if it would be better in the end for all. The environment becomes hostile to joy and meaning, and even success as defined as a flowing union of play and work.

From Milestones to Play – Bringing Life Back Into Learning

When we wonder why we're not learning from an application, it might be more useful to consider

where can I bring life and play into this moment rather than aim for the get through the next lesson goal?

Maybe staring at a single sentence in a foreign language and consider, do I know what this means? Can I say it? Can I play with it?

Or could I use it? Does it roll off the tongue? And if not, can I make it do so? What if I played with the words and the sentences until they flowed smoothly? Can I feel the sentence, can I feel it to where I can say it without having to translate it in my mind?

All of this takes time. All of this moves us away from the measure of completing the lesson.

When Streaks Turn Against You – Mascots, Milestones, and Misaligned Goals

The mascot might get angry and still come after me. It becomes more clear how a measure can actively work against the thing it purports to support. But the milestone or measure is again, not bad in and of itself. In fact, we can now use the milestone of completing a lesson as a framework. A context of support within which we can find that life within the thing.

It's not obvious, and it takes a deliberate focus to do so. It takes that, oh, so difficult. Pause.

The Courage to Pause – Letting Play and Care Take Root

But when we pause, we can now consider and envision lean into the challenge to bring our sense of play and care to bear fruit, to have the language take root where a new channel for our voice can now form.

We can further follow that play towards what one Reddit forum runner suggested. Immerse Yourself. Play, often thrives in immersion. We can read magazines, follow the news, speak with others, and more we can follow that playful sense into new realms beyond the app.

Redefining Success – Better Measures for ADHD-Friendly Mastery

Certainly milestones and completion are important. Measurements are important, but play is vitality. And without it, our measures petrify. Whether we complete or pursue and measure by milestone or not, it'll certainly have their consequences.

Arguing for the spirit of play may even be the work of the brave and the work of the brave often fails as without the potential for failure. What bravery was there anyway? But without playing care, forming, filling the vessels of meaning, what have we got?

And of course, we can create our own measures Maybe. I like the idea of being able to measure, having an easy conversation with my mother-in-law. That seems to be a better measure than any.

Petty Walk, Happy Accidents, and Creative Discovery

Today's musical piece was originally titled Pretty Walk, but I mistyped it and it became Petty Walk. I have no idea what a petty walk might be. But I like the error and I decided to keep it. Creativity, after all, is a discovery of what we're making in the act of making it. Errors are often only deviations from some original vision.

Well, here's the piece. I hope you enjoy it.