Protecting Ourselves with a Model of Attention - DBR 057

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

Our attention is our primary productive asset. Therefore, we need to protect it. Today, we’ll talk about how to do that in the face of modern technology. I’ll describe the neuropsychological model of attention, how it gets abused by modern technology and what we can do about it. This is critical understanding – your productive asset is being hijacked right under your nose and used for nefarious purposes. Let’s figure out how to stop that from happening. This is based on a book called The Distracted Mind by Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen. Both are respected guys and I wanted to use the best source(s) I could find. “What does our ‘ancient brain’ do with modern technology?” Attention is your productive asset, and the information in the world is competing for time on that productive asset. So here we go. Oh, and by the way, the takeaway here is going to be recommendations for how to deal with this stuff. I think you’ll find it surprising. We have to manage our attention Attention economy

• Economy: how goods and services are produced and distributed (usually ‘within a culture/jurisdiction’)
• Attention economy: how attention is used with particular respect to production, scarcity, and alternative uses (little to no location constraints)

The model of attention has to do with three ideas

• Idea 1: Selectivity - both inhibitory and enhancing
• Idea 2: working memory,
• Idea 3: goal management
• Switching costs

How to manage attention from the book

• #1 while you're doing the task, think about the value that you're creating or gaining from having Your attention where it is and where you want it
• #2 put the distractions away.
• #3 If what you're doing is a routine task, make it slightly harder – play games to stay interested
• #4 remind yourself that what's out there probably doesn't have huge value.

MY big takeaway from the book

• We can get better at this attention thing.
• I think a lot of people get victimized here
• We know how to do these things and that hasn’t changed
• The environment is changing, but not in particularly fundamental ways
• We’ve just got into a bigger library, but the skills are still the skills
• We have agency here – don’t be a victim - we can be more effective than we currently are