This is a short post exploring attention.

We work in open offices - environments of constant distraction. We carry distraction machines in our pockets and wear them on our wrists. Software has eaten the world and isn’t stopping, despite a global conversation warning us against it.

In this new environment, the ability to stay focused and recover from distractions is a superpower. This is not a new concept - attention has long been considered the most scarce commodity, and therefore the most valuable. The ability to control our own attention is necessary; the ability to keep others attention is the holy grail.

Much has been written about staying focused; less so on the ability to recover from distraction. The truth is during any given task, getting distracted takes less than a second, where as recovering from it takes minutes, sometimes hours. Our success is proportational to how quickly we can take notice, refocus, and get back into a state of constant flow. Maybe we should focus less on avoiding distraction, and more on reacting to it quickly.

Here’s to fewer distractions and more focus for today.