How I Fixed My Attention Span

I kind of feel like

my attention spam is dying

knocks on the door

it's just like

whenever I try and do anything,

I start craving some sort of distraction

I can't just focus on one thing at a time

even if that thing is sleeping.

But I have things I wanna do, things I focus on

I just don't

because refreshing Instagram is

always going to be easier

... and it's a problem!

And I'm tired of it.

I am tired of feeling like my life is
so far out of my own control.

So today,

we are figuring out how to stop scrolling,

and how to start paying attention.

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a portion of this video.

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[slam]

So, what's in the box?

[box opening]

This is an electroencephalogram,
or an EEG.

It measures electrical activity in the brain

which are associated with certain
performance metrics

like attention, excitement and stress.

Does that look good?
How's that - How do I look?

Now these things usually look
a little bit more

threatening and wire-y,
however

I reached out to this brand
called Emotiv

that creates more simplified
consumer options.

They gave me a little discount

so I could actually afford this
for the video.

And I look like a cyborg.

I think it looks cute.

Okay, so these are my brainwaves

and if I focus on it

really hard

it should be able to translate these

into more understandable metrics...

like attention!
Look at that!

You see the building of tension
and spike in excitement;

that's my brain!

I kind of feel like a videogame character
and these are my stats.

It's cool.

Now I should note that EEG data
can be pretty noisy

and things like movement
can really impact the results.

However, I think that having any level of
recording is an improvement

because I basically never pay attention
to my attention.

It only every really comes up when
I'm feeling guilty about my screentime,

or I realise that
I've done nothing all day.

And only having these really infrequent
and negative interactions with my problem

makes it really hard to be
objective about the whole thing,

to understand how bad it actually is

and see if it's getting better or worse.

But now, with the help of this brainscanner,

I finally got to measure a
baseline for my attention span

without getting bogged down by guilt,

or forgetting to focus on my focus.

[typing]

I wore the EEG while I worked, ate,
exercised and relaxed.

I did take it off a few times
because it gets pretty uncomfortable

after really long stretches.

Woah!

But, overall,
it was pretty easy to ignore

while I just lived my life
for the rest of the week.

Alongside the EEG, I installed
a program to automatically track

how often I switched tasks on my computer,

and I recorded
how many times I picked up my phone.

Did you know that you can't actually
export you screentime data!

Then I wrote a quick script
to compile all this data and visualise it.

Here is my life for the past three days.

Ooh.

The x-axis is the number of hours in a day.

These blue bars represent the
number of times I picked up my phone.

This grey line tracks how productive
I was at my computer,

and these coloured lines are the median
performance metrics from my EEG.

Now, some highlights include this moment

where I picked up my phone to start
debugging the app that I was using to scan my brain,

and then I ended up [uh] opening Instagram
and spending the next two hours on it.

[laughs]

However, during my meeting the next day

I was like super interested and attentive,

right? Great? No.

It's because I kept picking up my phone!

I was supposed to be on call!

I kept opening up Instagram!

But it's not all bad news:

there are these instances
where I put down my phone,

I get into the zone,
and my brain just lights up.

The only issue is that in my 8-hour work
day, it only happens for, like, an hour.

It's over here at like 2 o'clock,
or 5 o'clock, or 10 o'clock!

Now something similar does happen
to my brain when I am working out,

but... how often am I doing that?

All this is to say, is that for
the 16-ish hours that I am awake,

I am only engaged
and focused for like 12% of it.

The rest of the time
- the 88% of the time -

I'm all over the place:
I'm checked out or I'm distracted.

This could be most of the rest of my life
unless we do something about it.

So let's do that.

So, I started looking for any books
about attention, focus and distractions

and I found a lot of them.

There was just one problem
- they're all identical!

They invent different buzz words and

and they switch out the personal anecdotes

that they blend with legitimate science,

but fundamentally,
if you've read one, you've read them all.

Fortunately, you don't need to read any of them
because here are the three things

that you actually need to know
if you want to fix your focus.

1: Attention and focus are different things.

Attention is a broad concept that
boils down to our general awareness,

while focus is one process
that controls that awareness,

concentrating it on something specific.

2: Focus is a limited and exhaustible resource.

So, you can only really
focus on one thing at a time

and your ability to do that will
tire out the further you get from rest.

3: Focus also filters out distractions.

The more there are,
the more of your focus is being wasted.

Now some research exists suggesting that
certain forms of cognitive training

can increase your capacity
and ability to focus.

But the type of training and the
effectiveness has varying results.

The brain is complicated and
there is a lot of nuance in the details -

especially when you are trying
to find things that work for you

and your specific circumstances.

So to fix my focus, I'm actually only going
to do a handful of very simple things

that support what we know about focus.

Here's the plan.

First I need to manage my distractions,
starting with the obvious: my phone.

I deleted the apps that I never use,
set up time limits for the apps I use

way too much
(everything except for my wallet)

and muted basically all of my notifications.

I also installed this app
that replaces icons with text.

So now I need to put in a little
more effort before I open anything.

I also changed my display to grey scale.

I have never wanted to use my phone less.

God, this sucks.

I wasn't kidding.

Almost immediately, my phone pick-ups
and screen time dropped dramatically.

However, the silence made me
notice the sheer number of

internal distractions I have, too.

These passing thoughts that
just take me off task,

like wandering if I need
to buy more toilet paper,

wishing I learned
a musical instrument as a kid

or thinking about what
I'm going to have for dinner.

They were rarely urgent,

but often important enough that
I didn't want to ignore or forget them.

So, I dedicated a page in my notebook
to quickly write them down for later.

When later came,

I sorted through those thoughts based on
action, importance and time-sensitivity,

and kept it in mind when I was building
my schedule which got way more specific.

Now, I'm usually the type of person who

only puts, like, events in my calendar
- a normal person - however,

a lot of the books that I've been reading
have recommended time-blocking

or time-boxing. I don't know.

It's just setting aside
time to do individual tasks.

Apparently, it helps you avoid
the temptation to multitask.

[alarm beeps]

So, every morning, I took all of my work,

chores, exercises and hobbies

and plugged them into my calendar.

Now, I found that the secret is that

it's not as simple as just
putting an hour aside for each thing.

Since focus is an exhaustible resource,

I need to take into account
my energy levels throughout the day

and how much effort
each task is going to take.

Like, reading research papers and writing
takes a lot of focus for me.

It's just really boring.

[vacuum cleaner with audiobook playing]

but listening to audiobooks or animating,

I'm locked in.

I actually find it really hard to disengage
from the tasks that I really enjoy.

So I find myself thinking about them
or even continuing to do them

past their allotted time.

Which means that I should
probably think about those switching costs

when I'm building my
schedule out for the day.

Eventually, I realised this process
could be a little more automated,

so I got Taha to put the process together
in a notion template.

Now I can input tasks, tag them
and it will show me an order

that I can drag into my calendar.

I found it useful,

and if you want to give it a try,
I'll include it in our next newsletter.

But once I controlled my
external and internal distractions,

and built out a schedule
that minimised multitasking

and optimised for my energy levels,

all that was left was actually focusing.

It was amazing.

I was using my phone less
and getting more done.

My brain was lighting up.

I was way more engaged
in everything I did.

I found different soundtracks
to make it easier to get in the zone,

and life was great...

until it wasn't.

[uuhhhhh]

It is... 12.

I haven't left bed yet.

I've just been using my phone, full color.

Every 15 minutes I hit
"remind me in 15 minutes."

[uhh]

And then 15 minutes later I do it again.

Just feels like we're
back where we started.

I ended up using my phone
for 7 hours that day -

more than I had all week prior.

I had things I could do.

Things I should do.

But I just couldn't
bring myself to get up.

I am kind of proud that I managed to
pull up my code on my phone

and see if there were any clues in my data

that could explain what went wrong.

I know, it's pathetic,

but it was a small victory that
led to an interesting discovery:

the nights that I used
my phone past midnight

led to days where I felt more distracted
and picked up my phone more often.

I learned in an old video
how important sleep could really be,

so I decided to just give up on the day,

get some sleep, and try again tomorrow.

[sigh]

[aaaAAAHHH]

I feel like I'm drowning.

It's like I'm not doing
anything hard, right?

I'm just doing my stuff.

I'm just trying to focus on it more.

Except, I'm trying so hard to focus

that everything is making me on edge.

Like, my cat will try and get my attention

and I'll be annoyed
at him for wanting pats.

It's like there's sand falling

and I'm trying to catch all of the sand.

And you can't do it!

Am I making any sense?

I really need to make
every grain of sand count

by like doing everything on target

and even if I'm enjoying something,

I can't because I need to move
and catch different grains of sand.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

What are you going to day?

"Have you ever thought about

just meditating and doing nothing?

Taking a step back away from
the thing that you're working on

and not working?

Like taking a break?"

Maybe it was because I was desperate.

Actually, it is totally because I was desperate

but I decided to try meditation.

The only issue is...

I have no idea how.

Luckily, I have headspace.

I should probably turn the colour on

just so you guys can see
what the app actually looks like.