The race to the bottom of the attention economy is a race you cannot win. The only winning move is not to play.
Here is how you start your rebellion today. The race to the bottom of the attention
Close every tab that isn't essential to the task at hand. If you are writing, close your email tab. Close Slack. Close the news. If you are coding, close the documentation you aren't using. A clean digital desk is the foundation of a clean mind. Close every tab that isn't essential to the task at hand
Every morning, we reach for our phones before our feet touch the floor. We scroll through emails while brushing our teeth. We listen to podcasts at 2x speed while driving. We sit in Zoom meetings while secretly Slack-ing a coworker about lunch. We have confused busy-ness with business , and we are burning out because of it. Close the news
We aren't superheroes. We are addicts—addicted to the feeling of switching. Let’s get specific. Imagine you are a software developer writing a complex piece of code. You are in "the zone." Suddenly, a Slack notification pops up. It’s a quick question about a meeting time.
Why? Because your brain is lazy. It loves novelty. Every time you switch from writing a report to checking Instagram, your brain gets a tiny squirt of dopamine. It feels like a reward. But in reality, you have just derailed your logical train of thought. To get back to the report, you have to re-orient yourself. That takes minutes. Do that twenty times an hour, and you have effectively wasted half your day.