In this eBook, you will discover the topics about the importance of stepping back, distractions of all kinds, why to seek focus, benefits of disconnection, how to reinforce focus, how to avoid distractions, controlling the sources of distractions, choose your responses, break free from keeping up with information, controlling your time with your inbox, healthy distractions, why it's hard to avoid distractions, how to simplify everything, how people with various roles can focus and so much more!
This is the entrepreneur's guide to focus.
In this book, you will discover the importance of stepping back, distractions of all kinds, why seek focus, the benefits of disconnecting, how to strengthen focus, how to avoid distractions, controlling the source of distractions, choosing your answers, freeing yourself from having to keep up with information, controlling your time with your inbox, healthy distractions, why it's hard to avoid distractions, how to simplify everything, how to force yourself to focus, how people with different roles can focus and much more.
One of the greatest challenges of the modern world is to be able to focus.
It’s undoubtedly a world full of distractions, which may prevent you from starting a productive day, staying healthy and fit when the temptation of fast food treats and inactivity beckons, or enjoying the calm and quiet in the midst of a chaotic world.
Being able to focus will give you peace of mind, as you take on the world at your own pace. It will help you simplify things and focus only on the things that will have a significant impact on your life.
Once you learn to focus, you will value the smaller things in life. This means that you will become more effective in handling things that life offers you. You will only spend time on things that matters, controlling wasted time on things that have only caused economic, societal, and individual problems.
The biggest barrier to self-care is guilt.
Do you do some self care daily? This slide show will help you incorporate it in your daily life and remove all the guilt!
In this eBook, you will discover the topics about the importance of stepping back, distractions of all kinds, why to seek focus, benefits of disconnection, how to reinforce focus, how to avoid distractions, controlling the sources of distractions, choose your responses, break free from keeping up with information, controlling your time with your inbox, healthy distractions, why it's hard to avoid distractions, how to simplify everything, how people with various roles can focus and so much more!
This is the entrepreneur's guide to focus.
In this book, you will discover the importance of stepping back, distractions of all kinds, why seek focus, the benefits of disconnecting, how to strengthen focus, how to avoid distractions, controlling the source of distractions, choosing your answers, freeing yourself from having to keep up with information, controlling your time with your inbox, healthy distractions, why it's hard to avoid distractions, how to simplify everything, how to force yourself to focus, how people with different roles can focus and much more.
One of the greatest challenges of the modern world is to be able to focus.
It’s undoubtedly a world full of distractions, which may prevent you from starting a productive day, staying healthy and fit when the temptation of fast food treats and inactivity beckons, or enjoying the calm and quiet in the midst of a chaotic world.
Being able to focus will give you peace of mind, as you take on the world at your own pace. It will help you simplify things and focus only on the things that will have a significant impact on your life.
Once you learn to focus, you will value the smaller things in life. This means that you will become more effective in handling things that life offers you. You will only spend time on things that matters, controlling wasted time on things that have only caused economic, societal, and individual problems.
The biggest barrier to self-care is guilt.
Do you do some self care daily? This slide show will help you incorporate it in your daily life and remove all the guilt!
Never before in the human history, have we become so sick. Our health is at stake because we moved away from natural living. In this short guide, we explore the secrets that our ancestors knew to live healthy and a happy life. Unless we embrace a natural lifestyle, our well-being will remain a big question mark.
10 Steps To Getting Your Inspiration Back – Even When You’re Burnt Out, Cranky, and Would Rather Crawl Back Into Bed.
http://rachelrofe.com/10-steps-to-getting-your-inspiration-back-even-when-youre-burnt-out-cranky-and-would-rather-crawl-back-into-bed
WEBINAR Your Brand Needs TLC Too: Taking Care of Yourself and Your Brand Duri...Gina Dunn
We are living in uncertain and turbulent times right now. It’s crucial that amid this, as entrepreneurs and as humans, that we take care of ourselves, our businesses, and our brand. In this webinar, you’ll learn actionable tactics and methods to protect yourself and your brand during the coronavirus crisis. You’ll walk away with ways to center yourself, self-care framework, and bonus worksheet.
<< REGISTER FOR THE FREE REPLAY HERE >> https://igina.webinarninja.com/live-webinars/318557/register
Anyone who registers gets the BONUS WORKBOOK delivered by email.
The fresh thinking that led to a company’s initial success is often replaced by a rigid devotion to the status quo.
Some people know what to do in theory to improve their social skills, but find it hard to get out of their comfortable rut and actually start making changes. If that applies to you, here's my take on how to get yourself going.
HAPILABS is a company aimed at helping individuals in the 21st century take control of their HAPIness, health and fitness through applications and mobile connected devices.
HAPILABS products include HAPIfork, a connected fork that helps you eat at the right time and right pace, HAPIwatch, which helps you sleep better and HAPItrack, to help you stay in great shape.
HAPILABS is based in Hong Kong and in the USA.
The CEO of HAPILABS is Fabrice Boutain and the U.S. President is Andrew Carton, who is based in southern Florida.
LIFESTYLE TIPS - The right time to brush your teeth. Paul Scheider
Put yourself on your side! Make a commitment to yourself to become a more positive person. Don’t do it because others want you to do or as a reaction to somebody else’s opinions ; it for you and because of you. You will be the one to reap the benefits in the first place.
How to Free Yourself from Digital DistractionNextiva
Brian Solis has spent his professional career promoting the virtues of disruptive technology to improve our work and personal lives. While the benefits are indisputable, we have, as a society, become digitally distracted to the point that our lives and work have been impacted negatively - decreasing focus, sapping creativity, increasing anxiety, and deteriorating interpersonal relationships.
In Lifescale, Brian plots a course for us to re-center ourselves, freeing us from digital distraction and rekindling focus and creativity.
Watch Brian and Gaetano DiNardi discuss digital distraction and hear critical insights from his new book on how technology is hindering the most vital parts of our personal and professional lives - and how to fix it.
Reserve your spot for this important discussion on focus in our personal and professional lives, and check out a free chapter of Lifescale. https://www.crowdcast.io/e/freeing-yourself-from-digital-distraction/register
This presentation is my research on dealing with stress, anxiety and depression while I was going through a rough patch in life despite everything being good on paper, I wasn't happy and smiling was a struggle. Depression is a evil which doesn't even sho itself and fights from the shadows. People will move out on you just because they can't see a reason or a visual wound. Not many will even understand what and why you are the way you are yet the battle is constantly raging inside. On this star wars day... I wish you the best. MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!
Feel free to connect with me or add a comment if you want to share your thoughts on this subject!
Postscript - Life right now is still quite unsettled and paradoxically all of this happened while trying to settle it down with a purpose. I moved out of my structured super awesome job environment to achieve some personal goals that initially crashed me hard on the ground. In a lifetime of work, what would you do to be proud of? What would you do if you really want to make a difference? and what would you do to be able to say.. yes I did it! These questions needed answers. Mediocre isn't good, so I am giving this a thought and a perspective.
Here it is! Tips and trick to support mental health and wellness. Burnout and work stress is real. Organisations increasingly recognise the importance of taking care of mental health and wellness. What can you do? Be informed, be educated and take steps to support yourself daily mentally, physically and emotionally.
Detox Yourself.
There's a lot of common misconceptions about detoxification. If you have an Instagram account, or a Twitter feed, or even a Facebook timeline, you probably have heard of detox. Maybe people have gone on a juice diet, maybe they have been juicing all sorts of fruits and vegetables.
If you are in any way shape or form frustrated, unhappy, or feeling stuck with your lifestyle, you need to overthrow how you view your life. One of the best ways to do this is to learn to truly let go through a wholistic detox system.
Nothing else comes close. Nothing else would work. Seriously. No joke.If you want permanent change and you want maximum control over many areas of your life, it is time that you reach out for the ultimate reset or reboot button and go on a total detox system.
There is a real solution out there. A lot of it is counter-intuitive but if you focus on a holistic overall detox system it will reward you many times over.
This is the first of my free MindBpdy hack-sheets on self care for mental health using, counselling skills, CBT, and somatic coaching tools.
If you are a professional or parent or individual struggling to find balance and set boundaries, this is for you!
More will follow shortly, I hope you enjoy reading it and that you find some of the information helpful.
Never before in the human history, have we become so sick. Our health is at stake because we moved away from natural living. In this short guide, we explore the secrets that our ancestors knew to live healthy and a happy life. Unless we embrace a natural lifestyle, our well-being will remain a big question mark.
10 Steps To Getting Your Inspiration Back – Even When You’re Burnt Out, Cranky, and Would Rather Crawl Back Into Bed.
http://rachelrofe.com/10-steps-to-getting-your-inspiration-back-even-when-youre-burnt-out-cranky-and-would-rather-crawl-back-into-bed
WEBINAR Your Brand Needs TLC Too: Taking Care of Yourself and Your Brand Duri...Gina Dunn
We are living in uncertain and turbulent times right now. It’s crucial that amid this, as entrepreneurs and as humans, that we take care of ourselves, our businesses, and our brand. In this webinar, you’ll learn actionable tactics and methods to protect yourself and your brand during the coronavirus crisis. You’ll walk away with ways to center yourself, self-care framework, and bonus worksheet.
<< REGISTER FOR THE FREE REPLAY HERE >> https://igina.webinarninja.com/live-webinars/318557/register
Anyone who registers gets the BONUS WORKBOOK delivered by email.
The fresh thinking that led to a company’s initial success is often replaced by a rigid devotion to the status quo.
Some people know what to do in theory to improve their social skills, but find it hard to get out of their comfortable rut and actually start making changes. If that applies to you, here's my take on how to get yourself going.
HAPILABS is a company aimed at helping individuals in the 21st century take control of their HAPIness, health and fitness through applications and mobile connected devices.
HAPILABS products include HAPIfork, a connected fork that helps you eat at the right time and right pace, HAPIwatch, which helps you sleep better and HAPItrack, to help you stay in great shape.
HAPILABS is based in Hong Kong and in the USA.
The CEO of HAPILABS is Fabrice Boutain and the U.S. President is Andrew Carton, who is based in southern Florida.
LIFESTYLE TIPS - The right time to brush your teeth. Paul Scheider
Put yourself on your side! Make a commitment to yourself to become a more positive person. Don’t do it because others want you to do or as a reaction to somebody else’s opinions ; it for you and because of you. You will be the one to reap the benefits in the first place.
How to Free Yourself from Digital DistractionNextiva
Brian Solis has spent his professional career promoting the virtues of disruptive technology to improve our work and personal lives. While the benefits are indisputable, we have, as a society, become digitally distracted to the point that our lives and work have been impacted negatively - decreasing focus, sapping creativity, increasing anxiety, and deteriorating interpersonal relationships.
In Lifescale, Brian plots a course for us to re-center ourselves, freeing us from digital distraction and rekindling focus and creativity.
Watch Brian and Gaetano DiNardi discuss digital distraction and hear critical insights from his new book on how technology is hindering the most vital parts of our personal and professional lives - and how to fix it.
Reserve your spot for this important discussion on focus in our personal and professional lives, and check out a free chapter of Lifescale. https://www.crowdcast.io/e/freeing-yourself-from-digital-distraction/register
This presentation is my research on dealing with stress, anxiety and depression while I was going through a rough patch in life despite everything being good on paper, I wasn't happy and smiling was a struggle. Depression is a evil which doesn't even sho itself and fights from the shadows. People will move out on you just because they can't see a reason or a visual wound. Not many will even understand what and why you are the way you are yet the battle is constantly raging inside. On this star wars day... I wish you the best. MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!
Feel free to connect with me or add a comment if you want to share your thoughts on this subject!
Postscript - Life right now is still quite unsettled and paradoxically all of this happened while trying to settle it down with a purpose. I moved out of my structured super awesome job environment to achieve some personal goals that initially crashed me hard on the ground. In a lifetime of work, what would you do to be proud of? What would you do if you really want to make a difference? and what would you do to be able to say.. yes I did it! These questions needed answers. Mediocre isn't good, so I am giving this a thought and a perspective.
Here it is! Tips and trick to support mental health and wellness. Burnout and work stress is real. Organisations increasingly recognise the importance of taking care of mental health and wellness. What can you do? Be informed, be educated and take steps to support yourself daily mentally, physically and emotionally.
Detox Yourself.
There's a lot of common misconceptions about detoxification. If you have an Instagram account, or a Twitter feed, or even a Facebook timeline, you probably have heard of detox. Maybe people have gone on a juice diet, maybe they have been juicing all sorts of fruits and vegetables.
If you are in any way shape or form frustrated, unhappy, or feeling stuck with your lifestyle, you need to overthrow how you view your life. One of the best ways to do this is to learn to truly let go through a wholistic detox system.
Nothing else comes close. Nothing else would work. Seriously. No joke.If you want permanent change and you want maximum control over many areas of your life, it is time that you reach out for the ultimate reset or reboot button and go on a total detox system.
There is a real solution out there. A lot of it is counter-intuitive but if you focus on a holistic overall detox system it will reward you many times over.
This is the first of my free MindBpdy hack-sheets on self care for mental health using, counselling skills, CBT, and somatic coaching tools.
If you are a professional or parent or individual struggling to find balance and set boundaries, this is for you!
More will follow shortly, I hope you enjoy reading it and that you find some of the information helpful.
World-Renowned Doctor Saves This Dying Grandma's Life By Uncovering The 10 Second Ancient “Fat Hack” That Removes Up To 11 Pounds Of Deadly-Visceral-Fat Every 7 Days...
Every year, we spend millions of dollars on healthcare and beauty systems. Our days begin with teeth brushing, hair combing, and perhaps even exercise. Even if there are still many who need persuading or incentivizing towards participating in such routines, there is a general consensus that these self-care rituals are good for us.
But when it comes to our emotional health, we are taught from a young age to “get over” our feelings, and yet in reality most of us just stockpile them, carrying their weight throughout life.
Emotional Obesity will teach you how to become aware of our feelings and to subscribe to the habit of daily rituals for our emotional health, just as we have for our physical health.
ELIMINATE
STRESS AND ANXIETY FROM
YOUR LIFE
It seems like you hear it all the time from nearly everyone you know – “I’m SO stressed out!” Pressures abound in this world today. Those pressures cause stress and anxiety, and often we are ill-equipped to deal with those stressors that trigger anxiety and other feelings that can make us sick. Literally, sick.
Health & Wellness Themes of the Month are focused on raising awareness about important health topics. The different dimensions of health play a key role in how we thrive and succeed not only in our personal lives, but within our job and career. These themes help create a healthy balance between those dimensions and foster healthy conversation as an organization about how we can improve our quality of life from one day to the next. When we are aware of these dimensions, we can assist in raising awareness to those we serve in helping them to improve their own quality of life. A few topics we cover include: Connecting with nature, STEPtember, diabetes, hydration, de-cluttering and organizing your life, and of course having fun, just to name a few.
11 Romanticizing your Life Hacks | Unleash YouJiwan Shrestha
Romanticizing your life | 11 practical tips to romanticize your life.
Romanticizing your life is all about appreciating the small moments of life.
It’s about celebrating that which makes you happy, grateful, excited, and content.
Romanticize basically is appreciating what you are already blessed with in your life.
This is some form of being grateful for things we have in our life.
The law of attraction says that we attract into our lives whatever we focus on.
If you're unhappy with your current job, don't waste time thinking about all the reasons why you can't get a new one.
How to handle worries and the cost of worrying? I was thinking about this art, phenomenal, activity and I decide to write about it, due to the fact that, it has robbed me a lot in the past and I have come to understand it, how to handle it and put it under control. I see people, love ones and relative suffer and live with worries they can really do anything about or will fade after a while and it rob them off happiness, quality life and productivity.
NIDM (National Institute Of Digital Marketing) Bangalore Is One Of The Leading & best Digital Marketing Institute In Bangalore, India And We Have Brand Value For The Quality Of Education Which We Provide.
www.nidmindia.com
This comprehensive program covers essential aspects of performance marketing, growth strategies, and tactics, such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, content marketing, social media marketing, and more
Want to move your career forward? Looking to build your leadership skills while helping others learn, grow, and improve their skills? Seeking someone who can guide you in achieving these goals?
You can accomplish this through a mentoring partnership. Learn more about the PMISSC Mentoring Program, where you’ll discover the incredible benefits of becoming a mentor or mentee. This program is designed to foster professional growth, enhance skills, and build a strong network within the project management community. Whether you're looking to share your expertise or seeking guidance to advance your career, the PMI Mentoring Program offers valuable opportunities for personal and professional development.
Watch this to learn:
* Overview of the PMISSC Mentoring Program: Mission, vision, and objectives.
* Benefits for Volunteer Mentors: Professional development, networking, personal satisfaction, and recognition.
* Advantages for Mentees: Career advancement, skill development, networking, and confidence building.
* Program Structure and Expectations: Mentor-mentee matching process, program phases, and time commitment.
* Success Stories and Testimonials: Inspiring examples from past participants.
* How to Get Involved: Steps to participate and resources available for support throughout the program.
Learn how you can make a difference in the project management community and take the next step in your professional journey.
About Hector Del Castillo
Hector is VP of Professional Development at the PMI Silver Spring Chapter, and CEO of Bold PM. He's a mid-market growth product executive and changemaker. He works with mid-market product-driven software executives to solve their biggest growth problems. He scales product growth, optimizes ops and builds loyal customers. He has reduced customer churn 33%, and boosted sales 47% for clients. He makes a significant impact by building and launching world-changing AI-powered products. If you're looking for an engaging and inspiring speaker to spark creativity and innovation within your organization, set up an appointment to discuss your specific needs and identify a suitable topic to inspire your audience at your next corporate conference, symposium, executive summit, or planning retreat.
About PMI Silver Spring Chapter
We are a branch of the Project Management Institute. We offer a platform for project management professionals in Silver Spring, MD, and the DC/Baltimore metro area. Monthly meetings facilitate networking, knowledge sharing, and professional development. For event details, visit pmissc.org.
Resumes, Cover Letters, and Applying OnlineBruce Bennett
This webinar showcases resume styles and the elements that go into building your resume. Every job application requires unique skills, and this session will show you how to improve your resume to match the jobs to which you are applying. Additionally, we will discuss cover letters and learn about ideas to include. Every job application requires unique skills so learn ways to give you the best chance of success when applying for a new position. Learn how to take advantage of all the features when uploading a job application to a company’s applicant tracking system.
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Modern Society.pdfssuser3e63fc
Just a game Assignment 3
1. What has made Louis Vuitton's business model successful in the Japanese luxury market?
2. What are the opportunities and challenges for Louis Vuitton in Japan?
3. What are the specifics of the Japanese fashion luxury market?
4. How did Louis Vuitton enter into the Japanese market originally? What were the other entry strategies it adopted later to strengthen its presence?
5. Will Louis Vuitton have any new challenges arise due to the global financial crisis? How does it overcome the new challenges?Assignment 3
1. What has made Louis Vuitton's business model successful in the Japanese luxury market?
2. What are the opportunities and challenges for Louis Vuitton in Japan?
3. What are the specifics of the Japanese fashion luxury market?
4. How did Louis Vuitton enter into the Japanese market originally? What were the other entry strategies it adopted later to strengthen its presence?
5. Will Louis Vuitton have any new challenges arise due to the global financial crisis? How does it overcome the new challenges?Assignment 3
1. What has made Louis Vuitton's business model successful in the Japanese luxury market?
2. What are the opportunities and challenges for Louis Vuitton in Japan?
3. What are the specifics of the Japanese fashion luxury market?
4. How did Louis Vuitton enter into the Japanese market originally? What were the other entry strategies it adopted later to strengthen its presence?
5. Will Louis Vuitton have any new challenges arise due to the global financial crisis? How does it overcome the new challenges?
1. The Attention Diet
Evidence-Based
Distractions have become so pervasive in the digital age that we've
come to accept them as normal. But we can escape their grip and free
our minds.
27 minute readProductivity
00:00 / 00:00
Click play to listen to this article.
n the time it took me to outline this article I checked Twitter three times
and my email twice. I responded to four emails. I checked Slack once
and sent text messages to two people. I went down a rabbit hole of
YouTube videos once, costing me about 30 minutes of productivity,
and I probably checked my books’ ranks on Amazon roughly 3,172
times.
In what should have been 20 minutes of work, I compulsively
interrupted myself at least nine times. What’s more, the cost of these
interruptions goes way beyond the added amount of time to finish this
damn thing. They likely distracted my train of thought, reducing the
quality of my writing, thus causing a need for more edits and revisions.
They likely created anxiety as I spent much of my distracted time
anxious about the fact that I wasn’t working and much of my time
working anxious that I was missing out on text conversations, email
threads, or news updates. They likely made the process of writing
itself less enjoyable and caused it to appear more taxing in my mind.
These distractions aren’t just unproductive, they’re anti-productive.
They create more work than they replace.
Chances are you go through this do-si-do yourself on the regular. For
me, it’s only gotten worse as time has gone on—which is strange,
2. because you’d assume that my attention span and focus would be
getting stronger as I get older, but that’s not been the case.
I started blogging in 2007. I remember plopping down to churn out a
1,000-word draft being easy. I’d just wake up and do it and then go get
breakfast. It was somewhere around 2013 where I noticed I was often
interrupting myself to check Facebook or email. Then it was around
2015 where I felt it was beginning to become a problem.
I felt that I had to pay attention to my attention, that I had to focus on
my focus. It was new. It wasn’t something I’d had to think about since I
was a kid.
By last year, these interruptions had become compulsive. I didn’t know
how to not distract myself anymore and had to go to great lengths to
prevent it from happening. It felt like I was living in some kind of digital
hellscape, where the process of doing anything significant and
important seemed not only fruitless but also attentionally impossible.
How We Became Mentally Lazy
and Weak
Back in the 1950s and 60s, the world changed. Modern economies
moved people out of factories and fields and into office buildings.
Whereas you used to have to stand on your feet all day and carry
heavy shit around to make a buck, now, the best-paying jobs simply
asked that you sit at a desk for as long as possible without ever
getting up.
Our bodies aren’t particularly adapted for a sedentary lifestyle. In fact,
it turns out that sitting around all day munching on donuts and soda is
downright awful for your physical health. As a result, we began to see
3. epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease around the same
time that everyone got cushy office jobs. People’s bodies were falling
apart, becoming overly sensitive, and not functioning correctly.
To counteract this sedentary lifestyle, we all came together and
developed a fitness culture to counteract the health crisis. People
realized that if modern life had you sitting around all day watching a
screen, that you needed to set aside time in your day to go lift
something heavy or run around a little bit. That kept your body healthy
and stable and strong. Jogging became a thing. Gym memberships
were invented. And people wore spandex and jumped around on VHS
tapes, looking absolutely ridiculous. The eighties were great.
Our bodies are designed in such a way that they need to be
challenged and stressed to a certain degree, otherwise they become
soft and weak, and the smallest endeavors—walking up a flight of
stairs, picking up a bag of groceries—will begin to feel difficult or
impossible. It turns out that these small, conscious efforts to stress our
bodies are what keeps them healthy.
In my new book, Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope, I talk
about how our attention spans are dwindling. Anxiety and
depression are on the rise. How we’re becoming less tolerant of
people with opposing views, and less patient when the world doesn’t
go our way (which, due to the overload of media, feels like all the
time.)
The same way removing stress and strain from our physical bodies
causes them to become fragile and weak, removing mental stress and
strain from our minds makes them fragile and weak.
The same way we discovered that the sedentary lifestyles of the 20th
century required us to physically exert ourselves and work our bodies
into healthy shape, I believe we’re on the cusp of discovering a similar
necessity for our minds. We need to consciously limit our own
4. comforts. We need to force our minds to strain themselves, to work
hard for their information, to deprive our attention of the constant
stimulation that it craves.
The same way the consumer economy of the 20th century called upon
us to invent the nutritional diet, I believe that the attention economy of
the 21st century calls upon us to invent an attention diet.
This has been a big talking point throughout my speaking tour this
year, and I’d like to take a stab at codifying it in a real step-by-step
program for people here.
Goals of the Attention Diet
There are a few fronts on which our attention is being assaulted. First
off, there’s just a massive surplus of stuff to pay attention to. And the
more crap there is to pay attention to, the more difficult it is to choose
what to focus on—not to mention stay focused on it!
So, the first and most important goal of an attention diet should be to
consciously limit the number of distractions we’re exposed to. Just as
the first step of a nutritional diet is to consume less food, the first step
of an attention diet is to consume less information.
That then raises the question, “What stuff is worth paying attention
to?” What should we give a fuck about? The same way the
proliferation of junk food fucked up our bodies in the 20th century, the
exponential growth in junk information has fucked up the emotions
and minds in the 21st century. Therefore, the second goal of the
Attention Diet is to find highly nutritious sources of information and
relationships and then build our lives around them.
5. Basically, the name of the game is quality over quantity. Because in
a world with infinite information and opportunity, you don’t grow
by knowing or doing more, you grow by the ability to correctly focus on
less.
The method of the Attention Diet is similar to a nutritional diet—by
cutting out whole categories of consumption for a period of time, your
body (or mind) adjusts, becomes healthier, and then, ideally, after
enough time you no longer crave your old guilty pleasures.
(It’s probably worth noting that nutritional diets are famous for failing
spectacularly. My limited personal experiences have shown that
Attention Diets are pretty effective. But, fuck it, this is uncharted
territory, so let’s see how it goes.)
There are three steps to the Attention Diet:
1. Correctly identify nutritious information and relationships.
2. Cut out the junk information and relationships.
3. Cultivate habits of deeper focus and a longer attention span.
So, how do we define “junk” information and relationships and
“nutritious” information and relationships?
Well, without getting all philosophical, let’s keep it simple.
Junk information is information that is unreliable, unhelpful, or
unimportant (i.e., it affects few to no people in any significant
way). Junk information is short-form, flashy, and emotionally
charged, encouraging addictive consumption patterns.
Nutritious information is information that is reliable, helpful, and
likely important (i.e., it affects you and others in significant ways).
Nutritious information is long-form, analytical, and encourages
deep engagement and extended thought.
6. Junk relationships are people/groups who you have little face-to-
face contact with and/or little mutual trust, who bring out your
insecurities and consistently make you feel worse about yourself
or the world.
Nutritious connections are people/groups who you have frequent
face-to-face contact with and/or a lot of mutual trust who make
you feel better and help you grow.
A note on sports/entertainment: There is a place for sports and
entertainment in all of this. We all need something to help us unwind
in our free time. I personally love video games. But I also recognize
that if I check Reddit or Twitch 20 times a day, that’s a really
unhealthy indulgence of that hobby. Put another way, my hobby starts
to hurt me rather than help me. Our goal is to make our hobbies
work for us rather than against us. And we’ll get into how to do that
below.
Another note before we begin
The Attention Diet should be emotionally difficult to implement.
Ultimately, junk information hooks us because it is pleasing and
easy. We develop low-level addictions to it and end up using it to
numb a lot of our day-to-day stresses and insecurities. Therefore,
getting rid of the junk information will expose a lot of uncomfortable
emotions, trigger cravings, and compulsions, and generally suck for
the first few days or weeks.
The goal here is to push yourself to stay more focused on what adds
value to your life. If it’s not difficult, then you’re probably not really
cutting out all of the junk.
7. And finally, I want to give a shout out to Cal Newport and Nir Eyal. In
my opinion, they are like the tech geek versions of Farrah Fawcett and
Arnold Schwarzeneggar in the 80s.
Okay, maybe that was a weird comparison, but the point is, they are
leading the 21st century charge on treating our mental nutrition
seriously. Cal published a book this year called Digital Minimalism that
has become pretty popular and Nir has written a wonderful book that’s
coming out in September called Indistractable: How to Control Your
Attention and Choose Your Life. Nir is a good friend of mine and I can
attest that he may be the most disciplined and focused person I’ve
ever met. The dude just gets shit done. While this article lays out a
system that I’ve slowly developed for myself, his ideas and writing
8. have been very influential. You should definitely pre-order it if this is
an area you struggle with.
Onward!
Step 1: The Social Media
Cleanse
Apply the Law of “Fuck Yes” or No to your social media
connections – Go through all of your friends/follows lists, ask
yourself two questions: “Is being connected with this person
adding value to my life?” and “Does this person/group help me
grow (i.e., overcoming fears and anxieties) or make me weak
(i.e., amplifying fears and anxieties?)” If the answers aren’t
emphatic FUCK YES’s then you need to unfriend or unfollow
them.If you get hung up on someone or something and wonder if
they’re worth keeping, the fact that you have to stop and wonder
if they’re worth following is a sign that they’re not worth following.
Get fucking ruthless. This is your attentional health we’re talking
about here.
Unfollow ALL news and media outlets (including sports and
entertainment) – It’s undeniable that news media is becoming
more anemic, short-sighted, and inaccurate. Most articles are
written for clickbait, not for veracity and utility.Social media plays
into these worst incentives of the media. They fight for your
clicks by upsetting you, by poking at hot-button issues that FEEL
as though they matter a great deal, but actually don’t. They
create addictive cycles of outrage which not only fail to inform
you about what you need to know but actually make you more
resistant to facts.As citizens, it’s our duty to opt out of this toxic
system. And the first (and simplest) way to do that is to simply
unfollow and unsubscribe from ALL news sources on social
9. media. Don’t worry, I will discuss better ways to stay informed
and receive news below.
Uninstall any apps that feel pointless after doing the
above – If you did the two steps above correctly, your social
media accounts should be much leaner, and in some cases,
almost empty. This is good. The beauty of
unfollowing/unfriending masses of connections is that not only do
you get rid of all of the toxic and unhealthy information hijacking
your attention, but you also have maybe 10% as much content
when you log on. You scroll your newsfeed a couple of times and
voila! You’re looking at the same shit you saw yesterday. Time to
put your phone down and go do something useful.But before you
do that, take another look at your social media accounts.
Chances are at least one of them is so barren that there’s hardly
even a reason to open it anymore. The beauty of simplifying your
accounts like this is that it really shows you which networks
provide pleasure and which networks are just there because you
feel like you have to be on them. For me, it showed me that I
actually enjoy Twitter and to a lesser extent Instagram.
Facebook is just this annoying thing I have to be on. So, I
deleted Facebook off my phone. It felt weird at first, but I realized
that I was needlessly checking it 5+ times each day. Deleting it
freed me from most of those.
Step 2. Choose Good Sources of
Information and Connection
Current Events
Try this: only get your news from the current events page of
Wikipedia. Every Wikipedia language has a Main Page where they list
current events and notable historical events. This will give you the
bare minimum facts if you feel you must stay informed daily (which is
10. debatable). And, if for some reason you want to dive deeper into
whatever is happening, you can click on the article to, again, get the
bare minimum facts.
Wikipedia is curated to remove bias, political leanings, and false
statements. That is no longer 100% true of almost any news source
these days.
Getting my news from Wikipedia is two things: 1) a breath of fresh air,
and 2) completely boring.
It’s a breath of fresh air because it actually gets at what’s going on.
Just to give a current example, I’ve seen headlines for days
about attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Pretty much every
news headline I’ve seen has revolved around Trump blaming Iran and
whether he’s right to do so or not, whether he’s over-reaching or not.
In fact, if anything is true of US news media since 2016, everything is
always viewed through the lens of Trump, which is not only annoying
and unhelpful, but unfairly characterizes a lot of these issues. But pop
onto Wikipedia and within three sentences, I learned more about the
situation than all of the news articles I had read, combined.
Wikipedia is also boring. Which is good, partly because facts have a
tendency to be boring, but also because boredom has no bias. If an
article gets you angry or excited, you will become biased about its
content. On the other hand, if reading it feels like you’re reading a TV
repair manual, then you’re probably just getting the facts and nothing
else.
But best of all, making the news boring again encourages you to only
read about what is truly important or impactful for you. The truth is that
most of what passes for “news” is disguised entertainment—
information that is only impactful or important for a small group of
people or far removed from your ability to influence anything and then
exaggerated to make you feel outraged or angry or excited based on
11. your specific identity group. The only way to win at this game is to not
play, and by using Wikipedia as your resource for current events,
you’re opting out of that game.
But, there are important long-term issues like climate change and civil
rights and economic inequality that require lots of information and
critical thinking. What about those? Well, glad you asked…
Long-form Content
Long form content should be your bread and butter for news content
and the majority of your entertainment content. Long-form content
means any medium—Books, Podcasts, long-form articles,
documentaries—the key is that shit takes a long time.
There are two benefits of limiting yourself to long-form content. The
first is that (on average) it’s going to portray far more research,
nuance, and thought than short-form content. Stupidity in a tweet can
sound deep. Stupidity repeated for 12,000 words quickly makes itself
apparent.
The second benefit of long-form content is that it hones our attention
span and gets us accustomed to sitting with topics for extended
periods of time. It helps us to not fall prey to our immediate knee-jerk
responses. It gives us the space to wonder, “What if my assumption is
wrong? What if I’m the one with dick breath in this argument?”
The long-form content applies to entertainment too. Don’t just watch
sports clips all day, watch a documentary about your favorite player.
Don’t just listen to a hit song over and over, put on the full album.
Don’t just play a dinky iPhone game over and over, find a video game
you can immerse yourself into and think critically about its elements
and story. The idea is to regularly stretch your attention span and
ability to focus and exercise it like a muscle.
12. Longform.org is a great place to find long-form content. I’m also a fan
of Aeon.
Step 3: Schedule Your
Diversions
The same way you plan a “cheat day” or make an agreement with
yourself that you’ll only have X number of desserts or Y number of
drinks each week, the same goes with your attention. Email should be
a consciously-chosen activity done at a specific time to maximize its
purpose. It’s not something you compulsively refresh every 30
seconds. Same goes for social media. Same goes for entertainment.
Below are the guidelines that I try to stick to and are working well in
my life. Obviously, everyone’s mileage will vary:
Email twice per day – I try to limit myself to two email blocks
each day. Once in the morning and once at the end of the day in
the afternoon. The morning session I only look at and respond to
important/urgent emails. The afternoon, a couple times a week,
I’ll clear my whole inbox.
Social Media 30 minutes per day – This is a work in progress
for me. I’m fine on my work computer, the problem is my phone. I
still get caught on those loops of: refresh Twitter, refresh
Facebook, refresh Instagram, refresh Twitter, and on and on. I
recently removed Facebook from my phone (per above
guidelines), but Twitter and Instagram still suck me in.
Entertainment only at certain hours – I’m pretty much too
busy and traveling too much to get hardcore about this anyway.
But once things calm down in my life, I may experiment with this.
See below for methods of planning this out.
13. Leave phone out of office during the day and bedroom at
night – I’m good about leaving it out of the office when I need to
write. The bedroom is still an issue for me.
OK, this is all fine and dandy, but how the hell do we keep to this?
Everyone talks shit about social media… while scrolling compulsively
on social media. How do we actually implement these concepts into
our lives? Because that’s the most important part.
Step 4: Implementation
In Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope, I redefine freedom as
self-limitation. Freedom in the 21st century isn’t about having more,
it’s about choosing your commitments to less.
(To see an excerpt related to this idea, read this: #FakeFreedom)
To help us limit ourselves, we need to set boundaries around
ourselves. Our minds are too flawed and selfish to be allowed to
pursue what they want. Instead, like training a dog, we must train our
attention with the help of various tools to make sure we’re focusing on
the right things.
I’ll talk about three types of tools in this section: website blockers, app
blockers, and power outlet timers.
Website blockers
Key to implementing the attention diet is downloading and installing
site blockers on your devices. There are dozens of apps, but here I’ll
review a few of the best ones that I’ve used.
14. Cold Turkey (MacOS/Windows) – My favorite app. Probably the
most robust with the most features. You can block websites, specific
pages, applications, and even specific Google searches.
I love it because it has a scheduler. So you can modify what gets
blocked on which days. Let’s say you want Friday afternoon to be your
“email” afternoon, you can program that in. Or you can open up
everything on Sundays. It’s highly customizable. It also keeps stats!
15. Also, unlike some blocking software, it’s a one-time payment. So while
the price may appear high, it’s not that bad (and it’s in Canadian
dollars… which is like, not even real money).
Focus (MacOS) – More user friendly than Cold Turkey but without as
many features. Focus saved my ass when I was writing my latest
book. When I was on deadline, I got so desperate that I downloaded it
and basically blocked everything in my life six days a week for about a
month.
16. A screenshot of part of my blacklist. I have about 50 websites and
apps blocked on my work computer. It’s arguably the only thing that let
me finish my book on time.
It blocks websites and apps, and you can customize what you block
by day or even hours. It’s not quite as intuitive or simple as Cold
Turkey, but it’s still great. My only complaint is that when you update
the app, it shuts down, thus allowing you to fuck around again. I know
that sounds minor, but each time I updated the app, I’d go on a 3-4
17. day binge of unproductivity before I finally forced myself to turn it back
on.
Freedom (MacOS/Windows) – Beautifully designed and easy to use.
Also works on your mobile devices.
This is probably the most popular app in this category. I haven’t used
it in a year or so and the reason I stopped is that it’s too easy to get
around. Hate to say it, but I can’t be trusted with weak ass apps that
let you close them or turn them off in a bunch of sneaky ways, I need
an app that leaves me handcuffed with my work.
18. Self Control (MacOS) – Free and probably the most hardcore app on
the list. You load up a list of sites, turn it on, and then you’re
stuck. Nothing you do can turn it off until the time runs out. You can
restart your computer, uninstall the app, do anything, and it won’t
unblock you. It’s evil…in the best way possible.
Phone Blockers
First, before we get into blocking specific apps or the entire phone,
you should go into your settings and disable most/all of your
notifications. I don’t care who you are or what you do or what fucking
horse you rode in on, notifications are like the second-hand smoke of
attention—they give everyone a coughing fit.
Disable both the sound/vibration and the little red circles. You know
those circles are red for a reason, right? We unconsciously see them
as being urgent and they encourage compulsive clicking to get rid of
them.
19. Those little red dots are Satan, in case you were wondering.
(Optional: I also turn off my ringer and all sound from my phone. My
philosophy is: unless we scheduled a call, or I’m expecting to hear
from you, I don’t want to hear from you. Nothing personal.)
Once you’ve done that, let’s talk about limiting our app use.
iPhone users have it the easiest, as Apple has started implementing
features to let you temporarily block apps from yourself. You can find
a guide for how to do it here.
Google’s Digital Wellbeing app for Android accomplishes the same
thing, although without as many options as Apple. One thing I do like
about Digital Wellbeing is you can set a bedtime for yourself. So, at
that time every night, your phone becomes unusable.
20. Google’s Digital Wellbeing app is a good start, but still leaves some
features to be desired.
But, if you want to customize how and when you can use certain apps,
you have to download a third party app. There are a lot of options, but
the best one from what I can tell is aptly called “Help Me Focus.” It has
the flexibility to block some apps and not others, and lets you
customize when you block throughout the week.
Outlet Timers
OK, this tip is only if you want to get hardcore (and also if you have
kids). This idea comes courtesy of my buddy Nir Eyal. When I heard
him describe it, I was like “damn dude… that’s some next level shit.”
For about $12 each, you can buy timers for your power outlets. You
can then program them to cut off power to whatever is plugged into
21. them at certain times of the day or week. Buy a few of them and put
them around the house and you can customize what hours of the day
or week your wifi router works, when your television is usable, when
your video game systems will function, and so on.
22. Ideally, you’ll be so occupied with work and productive stuff during the
day that in the evenings, you won’t have to resort to controlling
23. yourself this way. But hey, desperate times call for desperate
measures.
I have a tendency to get sucked into video games. I’ve been pretty
good about it the past year. But the next time I find myself playing until
four in the morning every night, I know this is exactly what I’m going to
be using.
Common Objections to the
Attention Diet
Objection 1: “But Mark! I’ll be soooo boooreeed” – I have two
responses to this: a) Shut the fuck up. And b) no, you won’t.
Remember when you were a kid and you’d lie around on the floor,
flailing around, complaining to your mom, “But mooooommm, I’m
booooooreeed” and your mom would just kinda shrug and be like,
“Well, that’s your problem.”
Usually, the greatest part about being a kid came out of those
moments. You’d imagine the sofa as a spaceship and plot how you
were going to escape to the backdoor without the evil aliens (in this
case, mom) seeing you. Or you’d imagine fantastic creatures and get
excited to go draw them. Or you’d wander around outside until you
found other bored kids to play with.
They say necessity is the mother of invention. Well, boredom is the
father. Every great burst of creativity or action is inseminated with the
wiles of boredom. Boredom will fuck your brain until it comes up with
something awesome to do. And that’s a fact.
24. So, there’s a value to boredom. And without realizing it, the constant
stimulation of our phones and social media and video games and
Netflix series have robbed us of the creative energies of our own
boredom. They have stymied our relationships and desires for
community—I mean, why go hang out with the neighbors when you
can just binge-watch Sex in the City for the eighth time?
Boredom is good. It means you’re challenging yourself. It’s like bicep
curls for your mind. Embrace the boredom. Bathe in the boredom.
Objection 2: What if I’m missing out! – I have written in-depth
about the experience of FOMO (or, “Fear of Missing Out”) before, but
I’ll say it here again, briefly:
You are always missing out. You always were and always will be. The
question is: what is it that you are choosing to miss out on?
Most of your life, you didn’t care that you were missing out because
you either weren’t aware that you were missing out or you were
missing out on things you knew didn’t matter to you. Social media
fucks up both of those—it makes you aware of everything, and it also
gives you the false perception that things are way more important than
they are.
The result: constant FOMO.
Eliminate the bullshit social media use (i.e., implement the Attention
Diet), eliminate the perception that those things are important and
boom, no sensation of “missing out” on anything.
Ninety percent of the most important experiences in life are right in
front of you. And instead of distracting yourself from them, as you
have been, the Attention Diet will finally free you to face them.
25. Remember: it’s about quality over quantity.
Objection 3: I should be able to discipline myself to stop using
these things – I’m surprised at how many people say this. It’s a noble
intention but unfortunately, completely misguided.
Imagine someone who wants to lose 20 pounds stocking their fridge
with cake, ice cream, and frozen pizzas and then saying, “It’s okay, I
should be able to use my willpower to not eat these things.”
That’s insanity. Everyone knows the first thing you do when you try to
change your nutritional diet is you throw all the garbage out. We are
weak creatures. We cave easily. We are totally unconscious of our
own reasoning and often slaves to our whims. You’d be dumb to trust
yourself in such a situation.
If you’re trying to develop a habit of waking up at 6AM, you set an
alarm every morning (or maybe two). If you’re trying to develop a habit
of calling your parents more often, you put post-its in your office or
add events on your calendar.
The dirty little secret of changing your habits is that your environment
has far more of an effect than your willpower does.1
When you want to
lose weight, you stock the fridge with healthy food and throw out the
crap. When you want to exercise more, you hire a trainer or find a
friend to keep you accountable.
So why would it be any different with your attention?
The point of this whole Attention Diet thing is to generate an
environment conducive to healthy attention habits. Because, I’m sorry,
if your willpower was enough, you wouldn’t even be reading this thing.
If you’re still here, then guess what—you got a problem. I got a
26. problem. We all got problems. Hell, I bet you’re checking shit in
between paragraphs, you fucking degenerate.
Now, come on. Let’s get our shit together… err, together.
Accountability Buddies
I’ve long said that I don’t write this shit because I’m perfect and I think
you should be too. I write it because I’ve got the same problems and
use my writing as a platform to seek solutions.
So here’s my pledge. Starting July 1st, 2019, I’m going to implement
all of the above. I will limit email to twice a day, social media to 30
minutes per day, and only read the front page of Wikipedia or
consume long-form content. I’m going to do this and then report back
my results in August. I invite you to do it along with me.
If you do, after adhering to the diet for a month, let me know your
results. If enough people see significant results, I will compile a post
based on what everyone has learned and post it on the site later in the
year.
And best of all, find a friend to do it with you. It’ll make it easier, more
fun, and more interesting. When one of you is craving a YouTube
binge, you can agree to meet up for coffee instead.
So, get everything in order, and let’s make this the best month yet.
How to Stop Fucking Up Your Roman