Thinking in Public
The world is one big set of distractions. Even this post. All of it. We all want your attention — in fact, you should call distractions your biggest enemy.
The split — the pull on one side, the rep on the other
Manage your distractions or they'll manage you.
I wrote about deleting the internet a few weeks back. That was one rep. Distractions is the whole gym.
Focus is becoming a practice you train, the same way people train at the gym — something you build, one rep at a time. Notice the pull. Name it. Come back.
The people who can hold their attention are going to win the next decade. Everyone else will be very entertained while they stay in place.
Gloria Mark has measured attention on screens since the early 2000s. She reports that the average time a person stays on one screen fell from about two and a half minutes then to 47 seconds. She also says people often interrupt themselves, and that recovering from an interruption can take almost half an hour. She covers this in an interview on the University of California news site.
Mark does not tell people to quit social media. Her suggestions are plain: set a clear goal and keep it where you can see it, like a sticky note. Put demanding work in the hours when your attention is best. Do one thing at a time. Take a break before you are worn out.
That fits the practice above. Write today's one goal on a sticky note and put it next to your screen. When the pull comes, look at the note and come back. If the pull feels familiar, we all have ADHD now goes into why.