Welcome to the age of distraction.
Your human attention is more valuable than gold or oil or bitcoin. Advertisers want it. Influencers want it. I want it. An infinite quantity of content is coming for every second of your attention and time. We know this. We can feel it on an intuitive level.
We live in a media ecosystem that was fundamentally designed for the instant gratification of the consumer. Instant gratification feels good and helps us turn our cognition off in times of stress or hopelessness (lots of that going around these days.)
But beneath that, an attention economy built upon instant gratification is ridiculously profitable. Using scrolling apps to numb the mild discomfort of the modern human experience makes us easily advertised to — and even worse — easy to convert into user data for algorithms to more effectively reach us in the first place. We are in this.
The technology in our pockets was not designed to maximize our mental well-being. It was designed to maximize our economic potential as units of attention and consumption. This is inherently anti-human. And we need to redesign it.
But that’s not what we’re talking about today.
Before we rebuild our information infrastructure from the ground up, we have to address the human part of the equation. We have to train our attention to meet the demands of the age of distraction. We have to cultivate our own personal spotlights of focus in a pitch-dark ocean of meaningless, endless noise.
And on a deeper level, we have to evolve as a species.
By learning to direct our precious attention with clear purpose, we can ‘bulletproof’ our psyches against the constant onslaught of distraction. We can sidestep a culture of chronic consumption and shield ourselves with intentionality. We can reconnect to the parts of us that feel raw, and un-monetizable, and totally freaking human.
Here’s what that might look like:
Direct Your Attention
Ok. So we want to reclaim our focus and command our attention. Great.
This is a basic process to get our hands back on the steering wheel so we can drive our conscious lives with clear direction — instead of being whisked away by whatever quick hit stimulation is in front of us at that moment.
Start your engines.
Silence
It starts by turning off the noise. It isn’t until we restore silence to our overstimulated brains that we realize the sheer volume of the cacophony inside our skulls.
Phone off. Music off. TV off. Book closed. Zero input. No stimulation. Silence.
You can call this meditation or prayer or sleep. It doesn’t matter what form it takes. You can go for a walk outside or sit in full lotus on the floor of your office break room. Use your best judgment.
But when you feel overwhelmed with the endless stream of programming that your human psychology was designed to process, just turn off the faucet (temporarily.)
This is what true rest looks like. And our brains are crying out for it.
Modern humans in the age of distraction need to intentionally program these short periods of silence into our lives — if we don’t prioritize it, we won’t get it. Because like we’ve already established, the information machine is alive and well and appealing to you at all times.
Start with 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening of true silence. Also, practice the skill of de-stimulation any time you find yourself oversaturated with digital noise. Let’s say you’re 30 minutes into an unplanned scrolling session and the time has melted away and you can feel your focus frayed around the edges.
Pause.
It’s going to be OK. No need for judgment or self criticism or guilt. This is not your fault. All we have to do is practice silence. Phone off. Eyes closed if that’s how you roll. And breathe. 30 seconds will work great. Now you’ve just hit the reset button.
This ability to “catch yourself” when you reach a threshold of stimulation is crucial for long term adaptations to your attention. The better you get at noticing your loss of attention, the more likely you are to hold onto it next time.
Focal Points
Your consciousness is always ON — you’re never not paying attention to something.
So the next step is becoming hyper-intentional about where that limited cognitive resource goes. In a world of infinite choice and consumer freedom, we have the amazingly difficult task of deciding what to do with our focus.
Imagine your attention is a telescope. You have a focused, but restricted field of view you can apply to anything in your immediate environment. To regain a sense of autonomy over your attention, start by establishing one meaningful focal point.
Cleaning the kitchen. Walking the dog. Sending one (just one) email.
Something small and doable you can accomplish in 10 minutes or less. It should be slightly challenging (compared to scrolling,) but not so difficult you collapse back into a fit of stimulation. It should also be generally helpful to your life so you experience a small hit of satisfaction upon completion. This is what we might call ‘good dopamine.’ And over time, it will become far more satiating than anything short form content or other forms of tranquilizing distraction can provide.
You can train back your attention in tiny doses, repeatedly.
Just start with the most basic things. Apply 100% focus to them and feel your spotlight of attention grow in diameter as you sink into the seemingly meaningless tasks. What you’ll find is that the meaning comes from your relationship to the act of doing. And when you’re all the way dialed in, when you’re totally engaged in the focal point you’ve dedicated your attention towards — the task is inherently meaningful.
Scale Your Focal Points
After you’ve strung together a series of meaningful focal points and trained your ability to pay attention to one task while truly enjoying the process of sinking into it, you’re ready to set some bigger, farther-away focal points.
These are the bigger goals. The passions. The ambitions.
We don’t start with these because it’s impossible to write an amazing novel or song or get a new job in a new industry or whatever other “big goal” you may have when you’re just emerging from the cycle of chronic consumption.
But with some positive momentum under your belt, we use the exact same internal mechanisms for establishing focus to command our attention towards larger, more ambitious missions.
This is the long game. This is learning to derive meaning from purposeful action rather than instant gratification of the self. And while it’s significantly more challenging than chronic consumption, it’s satisfying in a way scrolling and other forms of cheap dopamine could never be.
When your macro, long-term focal point is genuinely more fulfilling and exciting to you than more time spent in a state of enforced tranquility, it becomes far easier to navigate the distraction of the modern media ecosystem and take conscious, meaningful steps towards what matters.
But it won’t be perfect.
You’ll still stumble and fall back into the old habits of consumption. This happens to me all the time.
That’s why we stick to the roadmap.
Silence: remove the noise, rest your brain, relish in the quiet
Set focal points: pour your attention into small tasks that generate tiny bursts of momentum and are easy to do
Scale your focal points: once back on track, sink back into the bigger goals and execute on activities that serve your higher purpose or ambition or passion
Reset. Recalibrate. Re-activate.
You can always fall back on this process. It safeguards your attention from being stolen by any one of the infinite sources coming for it.
You Are Your Attention
Your attention is everything that you are.
What you’re looking at, thinking about, experiencing, and paying attention to at any moment in time is who you are. It’s your consciousness.
How amazing is that?
You have autonomy over your attention — which means on the most basic level — you have autonomy over your life. You are not helpless. You have the necessary power to start moving in whatever direction you want.
We are what we pay attention to.
So let’s make it meaningful.
We got this.
With love,
Josh
Awesome article, Josh!
"Reset. Recalibrate. Re-activate."
These are concepts that appeal to me very much and I've used these phrases a lot, when I've journaled and wanted to make a massive change.
This text really resonated with me. THank you for writing this! 🫡⭐