Ryan Lopano Blog

As we’ve talked about and read so many times before, there are so many things going on that are meant to grab our attention. This is a big topic mentioned in Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention, where it says, “The truth is that you are living in a system that is pouring acid on your attention every day, and then you are being told to blame yourself and to fiddle with your own habits while the world’s attention burns.” There are so many things going on, which are being described as acid, that are ruining the real things that need to get done. All over, there are so many people or things that are meant to be more engaging than the thing that is supposed to be done.

This is very apparent in our everyday lives and something we tested with the technology detox. Despite taking away technology, which is designed to distract us, the distraction is still alive. There are tons of people or places that can be used as a distraction. Just sitting here writing this, I have looked around for something to distract me. As bad as that sounds, it is very easy to go and distract yourself if you want to. This is a big problem as it can really prevent you from being productive and getting things done that need to be done. Johann Hari talks about how “we are that server, and there are all these things trying to grab our attention by throwing information at us… It undermines our capacity for responding to anything. It leaves us in a state of either distraction or paralysis.” This is a great way to view it, as this is what is going on. Distractions do undermine our ability to respond to things, and these distractions are meant to get our attention.

The real solution to this is self-control. At the end of the day, these distractions will always exist, and there is realistically nothing you can do about them. You can just sit down, lock into whatever needs to get done, and actually do it. This sounds super simple, but actually doing something is the best way to avoid distractions. For me at least, once I am focused and actually doing something, it will get done. Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention continues with this point by saying, “You can try having self-control, but there are a thousand engineers on the other side of the screen working against you.” You can take this engineer analogy that Hari is talking about and take it further. In addition to the thousands of engineers, there’s a main person in front of them watching them work. You can choose if you are going to continue and watch one, or if you are gonna take a step back and get done what needs to get done. Being able to concentrate and have self-control is the main thing needed in order to fight back against these distractions.