Your Time / Their Agenda
Guard your focus and change your life
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Every ping pulls our eyes away and every notification we take note of subtracts value from us and gives it to someone else.1
-Michael Hyatt
In 1925, an inventor named Hugo Gernsback struggled to concentrate in his New York City office. Picture it: the clatter of typewriters from neighboring desks, the rhythmic thunder of elevated trains rattling past windows, newspaper boys shouting the latest headlines on street corners, and the persistent ring of telephone operators connecting calls.
Perhaps the hundredth clang of a trolley car bell finally pushed Hugo to create his invention — The Isolator. It was a helmet that completely blocked out visual and auditory distractions, leaving only a tiny opening for oxygen. One of the main problems was that you could only wear it for 15 minutes at a time, or you would drift off to sleep. I imagine you wouldn’t want to take a turn with the Isolator after Hugo finished using it for the day. I mean, did he wash it? Soak it in bleach? We’ll never know.
Regardless, our modern interruptions are far more insidious than those Hugo encountered. Specifically, we face an endless stream of digital notifications from the addictive devices in our pockets. Each ping or notification from our phones presents a decision: Do I finish this task or give in to someone else's agenda?
Each moment represents an interruption and a transfer of value—from your goals to someone else's priorities. Oliver Burkeman stated, “An email inbox is like having a to-do list everyone in the world can populate.” Nice, Oliver, but email isn't close to being as addictive as social media, where the most brilliant engineers in the world devote all their waking hours to making you spend more time on your phone.
Our small and innocent surrenders to distraction accumulate over time. Our most precious resource—time—is being traded away as we watch life pass us by.
We all have one thing in common: We each get 168 hours in a week. If we sleep for 8 hours, that leaves us with 112 hours to live our lives.
How will you live your life? Here are three ideas for reclaiming your attention:
Turn off text notifications. This is radical, I know. I recently did this. I get to choose when to respond to texts instead of being pulled into someone else’s world. If something is important, they will call me.
Implement a 'Notification Audit': Take 10 minutes to review all the apps that have permission to interrupt your day. Ask yourself: "Does this notification serve my goals, or am I serving someone else's?" Keep only those that genuinely add value to your life.
Practice the 'One Screen Rule': Commit to having only one screen active when working on essential tasks. Keep your phone in another room if you're writing on your laptop. If you're reading on your tablet, close your computer. When reading physical books, which I highly recommend, don’t have any screens in sight!
Every moment of sustained attention proves that your time and focus are the most valuable resources worth protecting. In a world that increasingly profits from our distractions, choosing where to place your attention may be one of the most revolutionary acts we can perform.
Great lesson in history — and to changing our own
That isolator is really something! I love the idea of the one screen rule, very practical. I consider it a success when I forget where in the house I left my phone while I work on my laptop.