We treat scattered attention as the cost of being informed, responsive, available and productive. But there is a cost to letting your mind be constantly entered by everything around you.
Mid-article I went to check my (existing) Freedom settings. Then I checked in on the credit card. Then I checked my solar battery level. Then I checked my email. Now I'm back here. Oops.
I really enjoyed reading this - thank you! :) In researching tech with kids, and working with people of all ages with ADHD, so many of these little tips work *so* well. It's wild, for instance, how quickly you can forget your phone exists if it's just in a different room...
The rules here get published again and again, and nothing changes, because the pattern underneath is stronger than any rule aimed at the trigger. Turn off notifications, block the app, leave the phone in another room, and the pull is still there, just waiting for the next thing to grab onto. Take the phone away completely and people still find something else to scatter their attention across. The phone was never the actual cause. It's just the easiest thing to blame.
If that's true, managing triggers was never going to fix this. The only real fix is training attention directly, the capacity itself, not the environment around it. And there's real research behind that too, several studies show attention training producing gains that simply removing distractions never does, though at least one well-controlled study found no advantage at all, so this isn't fully settled either way.
Exactly what I needed to read. Thank you!!
Thanks!!
excellent!
We treat scattered attention as the cost of being informed, responsive, available and productive. But there is a cost to letting your mind be constantly entered by everything around you.
Mid-article I went to check my (existing) Freedom settings. Then I checked in on the credit card. Then I checked my solar battery level. Then I checked my email. Now I'm back here. Oops.
I didn't read this yesterday when it was posted because I couldn't focus. So glad I waited to read this when I could focus! Bravo Jackie!
Благодарю вас за статьи. Всегда читаю с удовольствием
I really enjoyed reading this - thank you! :) In researching tech with kids, and working with people of all ages with ADHD, so many of these little tips work *so* well. It's wild, for instance, how quickly you can forget your phone exists if it's just in a different room...
The rules here get published again and again, and nothing changes, because the pattern underneath is stronger than any rule aimed at the trigger. Turn off notifications, block the app, leave the phone in another room, and the pull is still there, just waiting for the next thing to grab onto. Take the phone away completely and people still find something else to scatter their attention across. The phone was never the actual cause. It's just the easiest thing to blame.
If that's true, managing triggers was never going to fix this. The only real fix is training attention directly, the capacity itself, not the environment around it. And there's real research behind that too, several studies show attention training producing gains that simply removing distractions never does, though at least one well-controlled study found no advantage at all, so this isn't fully settled either way.