How to Take Back your Attention
We live in the digital age where keeping your attention means profit. It’s easy to get sucked into the infinite scroll of content across the world wide web of information and social apps. There are ads that pull you left and right. There are plenty of doom scrolling to be done where you can go from watching reels about cute dogs munching on fruit to influencers showing off their thousand dollar shopping hauls.
I’ve been chronically online since I had a smart phone. It’s been 10 years since I first had my first smart phone and let me tell you, I’ve spent more time picking it up and scrolling on it than I have made attempts at doing things I want to get better at like writing, drawing, painting…you name it. Sometimes I reminisce about the days when I didn’t feel the urge to grab my phone to get a quick hit of dopamine.
How did I live life then? I still had access to my laptop but that clunky thing was not easy to carry around. My focus was better. I attempted to make things when I was bored. I frequently spent my time outside during the warm summer days. Now this brick has me drawn in for AT LEAST 4 hours of my day.
As I’m getting older, I’m realizing how little time we have. It feels like we have forever but we all know that not the case. I’m here to serve you a reminder that your attention is VALUABLE. I’m not telling you to stop scrolling or to stop posting on social media. I’m asking you to reflect on where you direct your attention to. If you’re in a similar boat with me where you know you spend too much time on your phone and want to do what makes you feel alive then take some time to ask yourself these questions:
Why did you pick your phone up when you didn’t have a notification go off?
When you put your phone down, do you reflect on how much time you spent on it?
Why did you pick up your phone in the first place?
Who do you follow on your accounts? How do they make you feel when you watch their content? What value do they add to your life? Do they add value to your life?
When you look at your unfinished projects do you think to yourself, “Eh, I’ll get to it eventually?”
What can you do to make checking your phone less appealing?
When you realize that you’ve spent 5 hours of your precious day off to doom scrolling. Give yourself grace. Like I briefly mentioned at the start, industries poured money and research into figuring out how to keep us distracted and consuming their products. Ask yourself, “If I knew that I only had 1 year left to live what would I be doing with my time?”
