In my daily adventures through my mind I noticed that while doing something, I so easily get sidetracked by something else. There is always a message to check or a new like on Facebook or another task to do even though it’s not that urgent.
In a podcast, Tai Lopez said that our attention span is less than the one a goldfish has. I thought that’s bullsh*t so I did a quick Google search (to be noticed that I interrupted the podcast to search something) and it seems that there is some truth here. Microsoft did this study and it seems that our multitasking ability increased, but our attention span it is indeed less than that of a goldfish.
Honestly, I don’t know why we’re compared to goldfish, but it an interesting finding. No wonder it’s harder to do something nowadays. If we cannot pay attention more than 8 seconds (that’s what the study concluded), it might take longer to finish something. I believe this might be a problem because it can lead to loosing ideas. Did it ever happen to you to start writing something and you had some very interesting ideas and after a while (8 seconds probably), you stopped to check your phone or something and some of those ideas escaped your mind? It happens to me.
It actually makes sense. Our smartphone is the main reason this happens, especially if we have the notifications on. At every sound it makes, we feel the need to check it. Basically, we’re its b*tch. There are so many apps installed on this thing and each of it “needs” to be checked to make sure we’re up to date with everything. Even when the notifications are off, we still feel the need to check just to make sure we don’t miss anything.
How easy/hard is it for you to stay focused?