Over the past few decades, marketers of all kinds have been fighting for our attention. Like I said last year, your attention is the product that companies are purchasing. As a whole, sadly, they’re winning.
These days, your focus shouldn’t necessarily be on gaining the attention of others, but rather fighting to get your own attention back. While the statement may be a bit extreme, author Johann Hari puts it this way:
Social media and many other facets of modern life are destroying our ability to concentrate. We need to reclaim our minds while we still can.
It’s something we have to focus on doing, but fortunately you have a lot of options. For example, you could:
- Remove the televisions in your house.
- Fast from social media.
- Meditate daily.
- Spend some time in silence, like in the shower or the car.
- Take clarity breaks.
- Read or write using paper, not a screen.
You likely have more items you can think of to add to the list.
I know people that do each of those, but I don’t think I know anyone that does all of them. Following that full list would be very difficult, and perhaps detrimental. However, doing a few of them would likely gain some benefits.
Even if you don’t, simply acknowledging that many people are fighting for your attention is a great place to start, because once you realize that you can start to do things to take it back for yourself.
What’s something you’ve intentionally done to start getting your attention back?
Have you read ‘Indistractable’ by Nir Eyal? Scary stuff, yet not hopeless!
No, I’ve not read it yet. It’s on my list, so I’ll bump it a bit higher and try to get to it soon. Thanks for the recommendation!