The alarm starts blaring. After snoozing multiple times I roll over and finally dismiss the alarm. Lying in bed I start scrolling through my Instagram feed and check my work emails. I slowly drag myself out of bed, hop into the shower and jump straight onto the computer to start working. I work for hours on end and before I know it, it is 6pm. I eat dinner whilst watching YouTube videos and eventually hop into bed still watching my YouTube videos. Lying in bed I aimlessly look for anything that catches my attention until I can barely keep my eyes open. I fall asleep and repeat the whole cycle again the next day.

This type of day seems almost normal in the 21st century. We mindlessly go through the motions of life stuck in an endless cycle unaware of the ramifications that may come of our lifestyle. We live in a world of instant gratification. A funny TikTok video gives us that little bump of serotonin forcing us to continue scrolling to find that next video that will give us our fix. We are addicted.

Why is this bad?

In this attention economy we live in, everyone wants a piece of your time. This makes the internet reward smaller and smaller pieces of information to get you hooked. Our attention spans are shrinking drastically - videos are getting shorter and shorter, articles focusing more on click-bait. This behavior is evident in the workplace as well, open plan offices and instant messaging applications (Slack) whilst having their benefits they optimize for a quick solution. The barrier to messaging someone to ask how to do something is much smaller than sitting and struggling for the next 10 minutes. However, it is in those 10 minutes of struggle where you grow your skills.

Let's further investigate two areas as to why losing control of our attention is a problem.

Context Switching

For those familiar with Operating Systems, one of the key concepts is to minimize context switching. The reason for this is during a context switch you need to save all the information of the state you are in and load in the new state. The old state was fresh and easily accessible but by switching to a different task all of that fresh information is now gone as the brain tries to make room for new information. When we switch back to the old state we we're originally working on, we need to re-load all the information we had previously. As an example, try to remember a few sentences from this blog. Work on something else for 10 minutes and try to recall the same sentences. The brain will flush out information fairly quickly unless it is consistently reinforced.

A large amount of context switching leads to the feeling of being busy without really getting much done. Most of the time is spent paging in old knowledge about the problem rather than figuring out ways to solve the problem at hand. We need to be aware of this phenomena and not mistake motion for progress.

Focus Deeply

The only way to improve is to push yourself right to your limit. Reaching this limit should be uncomfortable but should not be hard enough that you give up. This is the zone you want to stay in to grow. Every time your attention diverges you pull yourself further and further away from this limit.

You can spend the whole day working on 10 different tasks and never reach the Cognitive Load required to grow your skills.

Analogy

Consider the goal of getting stronger. If you decide to do one push up and then take a 30 minute break repeated over the course of a day you'll likely see little to no improvements despite eventually doing around 24 pushups. However, if you combine all of those push ups into one session pushing yourself near maximal load you will proceed to see far more strength gains.

How to Reclaim Your Attention

I'm not pretend I have all the answers and tell you "here are the 3 things you need to do to reclaim your attention (CLICK HERE)!!!!!" but I will go through some techniques I am trying to employ myself. Being aware of the problem is the first step then proceeding to experiment with solutions is always my methodology.

The two techniques I am going to talk about are:

• Carving out deep work time
• Setting up a routine

Deep Work

Heavily influenced by Cal Newport's Deep Work, I have made sure to carve out time for Deep Work to enter the Growth Zone and stay there for as long as possible. The technique I use is what works for me and my job. Be sure to play around with the frequency and length of your Deep Work blocks to see what works for you.

To ensure I don't get distracted I block out two to three hours of time at work my Deep Work. During this time I do not respond to messages, emails or even look at my phone. If you're thinking "but when I get a ping I need to urgently respond!", I'd say give this a shot for a week. You'll be suprised as to how many messages aren't really urgent and in fact if you leave messages for a while they might even resolve themselves. That said don't blindly do this, be sure to communicate with your colleagues that this is a time where you'll be focusing.

Carving out a Deep Work block is not enough. One thing that I've learnt is ensure the environment is ideal to facilitate Deep Work to prevent you getting distracted. In fact I have a play book that I execute before I enter my Deep Work. This following excerpt is copied verbatim from my calendar.

Go through these steps to prepare:

Food:

• Prepare Snacks/Fruit - Go eat if you're hungry.

Water:

• Refill Water/Tea etc

Physical Environment:

• Clean Desk - Only essentials
• Move phone out of office.

Desktop

• Close all email/messenger/workplace
• Close all un-needed tabs and terminals (clear the workspace)

Goal

• Write out a well defined goal for the Deep Work session.

Walk

• Take a brisk 5 minute walk, go to the bathroom, wash your face.
• Visualize what a success hour looks like on this miniature break.

Whilst within a Deep Work session when you feel the desire to jump onto your phone or get distracted recognize that you may be getting overwhelmed with the current workload. The best solution is to get some air, go for a walk, relax a little. The mind will be processing the information in the background so ensure you don't overwrite that information by going on your phone.

Deep work blocks are an extremely efficient method to enter the Growth Zone.

Routine

With a large portion of the population working from home it is easy to blur the lines between Work and Home. We can find ourselves being drawn into the issues at work and since starting work is often only a few steps away we can't help but jump right in. This is where a routine is the utmost importance. It helps you give your attention to things that matter as opposed to whatever is right in front of your face at the moment. It allows you to invest your time in activities that may not have an instant gratification but will be worth it in the long run.

Let me put a disclaimer here to say I've never been very good with sticking to my routine. I'm still experimenting to find what works but let's break down my current routine.

6:00am - 7:00am

• Wake-up
• Chug a glass of water.
  • Great way to wake up and re-hydrate the body.
• Blue Light + 30 Starjumps
  • Signal to the body that it is morning!
• Meditate
  • This is a practice I have been very inconsistent with but I will keep on trying!
• Coffee
  • The first week of each month is decaf to help bring my caffeine tolerance down.
• Journal
  • 3 things I'm grateful for
  • 3 small things that will make this day amazing
  • Anything that is on my mind.

7:00am - 9:00am

• M|W|F - Exercise
  • Tennis, Gym (when it is open), Run, etc
• Tu|Th - Working on my own things.
  • Habit tracker, Watch a Lecture, Blog etc
  • On these days, once I'm done with my own work I'll go for a walk around the block to mimic "walking to work" and then come back home.
• Sa|Su - Exercise | Working on my own things.
  • Flexible depending on whether tennis partner is available etc

9:00am - 5:00pm

• Cold shower!
  • Be comfortable with uncomfortable.

5:00pm - 5:30pm

• Eat + Misc Social Media Scrolling :P

5:30pm - 7:30pm

• Mo | Tu | Th | Fr Habit Tracker Programming
  • Trying to learn something new :)

8:00pm -> Sleep

• Journal
  • Reflect on the day
  • What went well, what could have gone better!
  • Whatever is on my mind.
• Prepare for tomorrow!
  • Coffee Machine / Kettle
  • Prepare clothes (Work + Workout Clothes)
  • Clean working environment (start the morning strong!)
• Read / Relax / Cut out devices at this point.

The important steps are the beginning and end of the day. These are the anchors of the day to ensure you spend times on things you determine are valuable. The work day is intentionally left as one big block to handle the reactive nature of the job.

By intentionally specifying things like morning exercises and afternoon programming I am able to separate when I'm at home and at work ensuring these two states don't mix.

Know where your attention is going

Our attention and time are one of the most important resources we have. Being aware as to where we are spending it is more important than ever.

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If you reached the end and read the whole post - reach out to me and we can get a coffee (a virtual one until COVID blows over :D).

This post acts as a way to keep me accountable for my routine. I hope to have a follow on blog explaining what worked and what didn't over this month!