1, #86 - How to survive in a world of distraction
The proper response to this situation, we’re often told today, is to render ourselves indistractible in the face of interruptions: to learn the secrets of “relentless focus”—usually involving meditation, web-blocking apps, expensive noise-canceling headphones, and more meditation—so as to win the attentional struggle once and for all. But this is a... See more
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
In The World Beyond Your Head, Matthew Crawford called attention “the thing that is most one’s own” because what we pay attention to determines what is real to us, what is “actually present to our consciousness.” Just as we become what we eat, our reality becomes what we pay attention to. And just like our appetite has been hijacked by food enginee... See more
“The way to manage your attention is not to ‘unplug’ or do some sort of bullshit Classical Liberal virtue signaling crap of ‘I only read Ancient Greek authors’ but to be sensitive to your current mind size and consciously target the zone you want to be in...
Matt Klein • Unplugging Is Not the Solution You Want
What appears at first to be a crisis of attention may be a narrowing of the way we interpret its value: an emergency about where—and with what goal—we look.
The nonstop onslaught of email, texts, bills to pay—life’s “full catastrophe”—throws us into a brain state antithetical to the open focus where serendipitous discoveries thrive. In the tumult of our daily distractions and to-do lists, innovation dead-ends; in open times it flourishes. That’s why the annals of discovery are rife with tales of a bril
... See moreDaniel Goleman • Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence
Is it possible to solve the problem of attention theft? As we transition into an increasingly digital existence, we are torn between existing in the real-world and the metaverse. Logging off for sanity, connectedness, peace of mind, seems almost irresponsible because of the personal and professional obligation to be reachable; because technology en... See more
Avantika Mehra • 100 questions for 2022
