{"id":14963,"date":"2023-03-05T07:55:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-05T15:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/?p=14963"},"modified":"2023-03-10T05:54:56","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T13:54:56","slug":"needing-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/05\/needing-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"Needing to Pay Attention is a Novel Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cal Newport<\/a> and I are running a new session of our popular course, Life of Focus<\/a>, next week. For the next three months, we\u2019ll be working with students to improve their deep work routines, safeguard their personal time and engage in meaningful projects. We hope you\u2019ll join us!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If you\u2019ve read anything about healthy eating, you\u2019ve heard a familiar argument: our bodies weren\u2019t designed for modern diets. <\/p>\n

For centuries, humanity\u2019s challenge was eating too few calories, not too many. Food was perishable, and the average hunter-gatherer might not know when the next meal would arrive. Nature\u2019s solution was to design us to overeat whenever high-calorie foods were available. This hardwiring is ill-suited for a modern environment, though, where food is abundant and tasty.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, we\u2019re learning that a similar argument could be applied to our brains: our minds weren\u2019t designed for the attentional demands of modern life.<\/p>\n

Like our taste buds, our instincts for what to pay attention to were shaped by millions of years of survival. Social gossip and threats to our personal well-being were highly relevant for most of our species\u2019 history. Life in a small community meant that this information was vital to staying alive.<\/p>\n

Except, as with our nutritional surroundings, our attentional environment is now completely different. Our attentional instincts make it easy for us to get sucked into the lives of people we will never meet, feel anxious about news that has no impact on us, and encourages us to scroll long past the point when using our phones is entertaining.<\/p>\n

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In a previous era, deliberate focus was largely unnecessary because our instincts about what to pay attention to were a good match for our environment. Today, focus has to be cultivated.<\/p>\n

How to Cultivate Focus<\/h2>\n
\nListen to this article<\/small>
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