What’s in it for me? Learn to tune out the world’s distractions.
Today, the ability to concentrate is often hard to come by. Advances in technology have made many things easier – but they’ve made trying to focus much, much harder.
We’re surrounded by nonstop digital chatter. Likes, emails, mentions, and texts constantly clamor for our attention – and it seems we’re finding the temptation increasingly difficult to resist.
The aftermath of all this distraction? Sloppy thinking, aimless living, and dwindling human connection. From diagnosing the problem to taking back control, these blinks set out a brief and compelling plan to reclaim your attention in an age of mass distraction.
In these blinks, you’ll learn
why multitasking is like getting high;
why your focus should resemble a flashlight; and
how tech workers are educating their children.
Information overload is damaging our ability to think.
These days, people disagree on many topics, often more fiercely than ever. Whether it concerns our elected representatives, pressing environmental issues, or even just celebrity spats, it seems that there are very few issues that we can all unite behind.
But what about the topic of information? The more information you consume, the smarter you are. And the smarter you are, the better. Right? Surely that isn’t controversial?
Well, it might be time to reconsider.
The key message here is: Information overload is damaging our ability to think.
You see, these days, we actually suffer from an excess of information. Whether it’s a stream of incoming messages or a frantic, never-ending newsfeed, most of us are inundated with irrelevant information from morning till night.
Now, this is more than just a minor nuisance. When we subject our minds to this informational onslaught, we actually prevent them from working at full capacity.
There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that your mind needs nutrition, just as your body does – so when you hop from one screen to another, skimming information and never really settling down, you actually undernourish your brain.
By keeping things superficial, you fail to consume anything of substance – and, like living on soda and popcorn, this can weaken your mind over time.
The more you consume information in this manner, the more your brain starts to adapt to constant, novel information. Instead of being content to settle down and engage with a task properly, your mind learns to expect hit after hit of gratifying but ultimately superficial stimulation.
Tweets, emails, snaps, you name it – they all rewire your brain and train it to anticipate constant interruptions.
You might think there is nothing inherently wrong with that. After all, you can multitask! Interruptions don’t really bother you – right? Well, not exactly. Glenn Wilson, a professor of psychology at Gresham College in London, estimates that multitasking depletes our IQ by 10 points. In fact, he’s argued that your cognitive skills take a sharper dip when you try to multitask than when you smoke marijuana.
You probably wouldn’t want to make important life decisions and business deals while high on drugs. So why would you try to do it while fending off a barrage of attention-sapping information?
Divided attention harms our ability to communicate and connect.
How many times have you come across a scene like this: you’re out at a nice restaurant or bar, and the atmosphere is electric. You look around, and everybody seems to be having fun. Everybody, that is, apart from one group.
While the people at all the other tables are chatting, eating, and enjoying each other’s company, one group is sitting in near-total silence with their heads bent over their phones.
It might be a group of teenagers. Maybe it’s an entire family. Either way, they’re not talking, they’re not communicating, and they’re certainly not connecting.
The key message here is: Divided attention harms our ability to communicate and connect.
A scene like this might seem trivial. After all, what’s the big deal about a group of people dining in silence? In itself, not much – but it does underscore a much wider issue.
Many managers don’t know how to talk to the people they’re meant to oversee. Leaders often struggle to engage their followers. Couples frequently speak past each other, and children simply tune their parents out.
The common denominator in all of these situations is ineffective, unrewarding communication.
You see, technology has made it harder for us to pay attention to others. Chatting with our family members often isn’t as stimulating as whatever pops up on our phones, so it can sometimes be tempting to disengage from real-world conversations.
This is a particular danger for young people, whose brains haven’t fully developed. Among other factors, teenagers have what is called a hyperactive risk-reward system, making them more vulnerable to addiction.
When young people consistently tune in to the world of technological noise, they eventually end up distractible and less sensitive to others’ emotions.
Luckily, some people are starting to wise up to the unwanted side effects of information overload. Take the Waldorf School in Silicon Valley; despite its location, the school is anything but a tech hub. At the Waldorf School, pupils study the old-fashioned way – not with tablets and virtual reality, but with pens, paper, and conversation.
Ready for the kicker? Three-quarters of the Waldorf School’s pupils have parents working for a technology company. It’s as though the people who create nonstop informational “noise” recognize just how troublesome it can be.
Managing your awareness is the first step in taking back control.
Think back over the course of your life and try to remember all the hours you’ve spent staring at a screen. Time spent scrolling through newsfeeds, watching videos, and fielding various insignificant messages.
If you’re like most people, you’ll probably find it difficult to pinpoint any very precise memories. Most likely, all you’ll remember is a general haze of information forgotten, goals missed, and hours misspent.
At the time of mindless consumption, it might feel like nothing’s at stake. But these moments of distraction can bleed into days, weeks, months, and even years. Some people find they’ve been living in autopilot mode for as long as they can remember.
So what can we do about it?
The key message here is: Managing your awareness is the first step in taking back control.
The first thing you need to do is start thinking of your attention as a precious commodity. After all, the very phrase “paying attention” suggests a valuable resource – which, like a bank account, can be depleted over time.
When a well-disciplined mind focuses on a task, it’s like a powerful flashlight – precise, bright, and brilliantly illuminating. A wandering and distracted mind, on the other hand, is like an old, sputtering lamp – flickering, dull, and diffuse.
So how do we sharpen our mental focus? It’s really quite simple. We need to develop a greater awareness of how we’re actually occupying our minds. Are the things we’re paying attention to worth our time and energy? Or are they irrelevant, distracting, and superficial?
If you get into the habit of asking these questions, you can begin to catch yourself before you go down an information rabbit hole and before you succumb to the lure of news alerts, social media notifications, and easy but shallow entertainment.
So how do you find out if your attention needs tighter management? Well, you could try examining some of your habits. For example, do you really pay attention when you’re talking to people? Do you listen attentively? Or are your interactions brief and shallow?
And what about your productivity rate? Do you complete daunting projects easily? Or do you hop from task to task, switching topics when you get bored or overwhelmed?
If you’re unhappy with your answers to these questions, you probably need to pay more attention to how you’re occupying your mind. And once that’s done, you can follow the advice laid out in the next blink.
Tune into what’s paramount and disregard everything else.
If you’re at a party trying to make small talk, you probably shouldn’t open conversations with a deep, probing question like, “What’s the most important thing in your life?” If you’re lucky, you’ll get some interesting answers – but more likely than not, you’ll just trigger an awkward silence and some embarrassed laughs.
The thing is, most people avoid answering this question even when they’re alone with their own thoughts. They struggle to articulate their highest aims and their long-term dreams – a fact with some unfortunate consequences.
You see, when you’re unsure about where you’re going, it’s easy to wander off track and waste time, achieving very little. But when you identify your uppermost ambitions, everything suddenly becomes clearer.
The key message here is: Tune into what’s paramount and disregard everything else.
In a world full of noise, anyone without clear goals and a defined plan of action will find herself blown off course pretty quickly. With distractions and temptations beckoning us every step of the way, we need to have our eyes fixed on a specific end goal in order to remain firmly on course.
But what does that look like in real life? Well, in short, it means streamlining your world. There’s probably a lot in your life that doesn’t accord with your long-term goals – like bad time management, wasteful habits, and sloppy planning.
Tuning into what’s important means identifying everything that’s good and necessary in your life while getting rid of everything else. Simplicity is your watchword here. You want to select a few things of great importance – not a large number that are of little importance.
So how exactly do we go about simplifying our lives? One trick is to start writing. Setting things down on paper can help to crystallize your vision. Take the time to sit down and write out a list of your most important values and ambitions.
Another popular strategy is to make yourself accountable to someone. Tell your partner, close friend, or relative what your goals are, and be as detailed and precise as you can.
The act of telling others what our goals are provides an added incentive to achieve them. We all want to appear competent and determined in our loved ones’ eyes – so why not turn that desire into a source of motivation by sharing your goals?
Forming just a few new habits will make it easier to mute the noise in your life.
Avoiding information overload might seem like a constant uphill battle – an eternal slog that never gets any easier and grinds you down over time. But that’s just not true.
Even though today’s tech-heavy society might make things difficult for us, muting the world’s buzz can actually grow less difficult with time.
So, how do we do it?
Well, it all comes down to habit formation. True, habits can be tricky to acquire, but once you get them to stick, they’re usually there to stay. That means that by cultivating a few new behaviors, you can actually make time your friend – not your enemy.
The key message here is: Forming just a few new habits will make it easier to mute the noise in your life.
One way that you can practice the habit of streamlining and simplifying your life is by starting with your possessions. Look around your room, under the bed, and at the back of your wardrobe. Do you really need everything that you see there? Probably not.
By throwing away anything you don’t need, you’re getting yourself used to decluttering. And after that, the transition from clearing out your home to decluttering your mind feels like a very small one.
Another habit you can develop is fairly straightforward. In fact, it consists of nothing more than minding your own business.
You see, much of our precious attention is spent judging and pondering things that, at the end of the day, have nothing to do with us. The next time you’re in a group, notice how your mind starts to issue judgments, draw conclusions, and formulate irrelevant opinions.
Take a second to ask yourself whether the things you’re brooding over have any effect on you whatsoever. If they don’t, dismiss them. Remember, your attention is a precious commodity.
Once you’ve dismissed your internal monologue, return your attention to the conversation at hand, and practice active listening. That means listening closely in order to understand – not to agree, argue, or even come up with solutions.
If you take the time to develop a few simple habits, like decluttering your life and minding your own business, you’ll be surprised by the amount of energy and attention it frees up.
Honing your communication skills can help keep a distractible audience focused.
So, you get it. The world has never been noisier. There have never been more demands on our attention and fewer ways to escape the constant distractions.
Up until this point, we’ve only discussed what you can do to control your own attention. But there are also ways you can use this information to deal with other people.
So, how do you adapt to a world in which people are perpetually distracted? How do you capture the attention of the inattentive? Is it even possible?
The key message here is: Honing your communication skills can help keep a distractible audience focused.
Truly engaging an audience that’s used to the speed and novelty of modern technology is difficult. Their minds often drift and, now and then, they might even start typing away in front of you.
But instead of being dismayed by your audience members, you need to adapt your message to them, taking care not to overwork their attention spans.
The key to effective communication in an age of shrinking attention spans is brevity. Plain and simple. If your message comes sandwiched between a boring preamble and a meandering conclusion, your listeners will never distinguish it from the surrounding noise. So keep it short.
If you catch yourself phrasing something in a roundabout or confusing way, stop short and say, “In other words,” and then rephrase it as simply as possible. Avoid jargon and business-speak if you can. It signals to listeners that you’re not trying to be understood.
There are a few other ways to keep your audience engaged. One is calling people by name. Whether you actually ask an audience member to contribute or simply direct a comment toward a particular listener, naming people keeps listeners on their toes and engaged with whatever you’re saying.
Another simple tactic is to make use of intermissions. Have you noticed that people’s eyes are glazing over, or you’ve caught sight of a few stifled yawns? Consider a ten-minute break. Giving people a chance to relax means they’ll be more likely to pay attention when you begin talking again.
Final summary
With so much information at our fingertips, it’s easier than ever to be distracted. That means that in order to remain focused and productive, we need to become more aware of how we occupy our minds and cultivate some new helpful habits.
Actionable advice:
Adopt the 7-to-7 rule.
Do you find yourself reaching for your phone first thing in the morning and last thing at night? Do you automatically check your phone if you have a few minutes to kill? Not anymore. When you follow the 7-to-7 rule, you don’t use your phone for any reason before 7:00 a.m. or after 7:00 p.m. That will give you the downtime you need to disengage from digital distractions.
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What to read next: Brief by Joseph McCormack
Did learning about distraction-proof communication pique your interest? Were you intrigued by our advice to keep messages concise? Or maybe you want to learn some more ways to make your emails, memos, and presentations more engaging? If so, take a look at our blinks to Brief, also by Joseph McCormack. From casual small-talk to boardroom pitches, these blinks outline how best to keep it brief in all aspects of your life.
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