www.andrewmackay.net:

Sometimes, I think the technophobes among us are on to something. Not in a “whole hog” sort of way, but in a “yeah, maybe there’s a reason behind that” sort of a way.

You see, much like Tootles in Hook lost his marbles, I’ve lost my attention span. Right there… it just happened. I got to the end of a sentence, typed a period, and thought… I should look that up on IMDB. I stopped myself, but that could’ve become a five minute rabbit trail.

I’ve lost my attention span. It seems like not ten minutes of focus go by when I’m trying to write before I’m thinking about looking something up, checking facebook, making sure the world hasn’t fallen apart in the last ten minutes by checking news headlines.

That’s on top of having a podcast, music, or something else playing in the background. I mean, how many things can I truly track at once?

I’ve lost my attention span, but I think I know where to find it. In college, I had a dear professor who spent some of his time with a few of us young guys, endeavoring to help us succeed in life. He preached the value of discipline. It’s a word I avoid because it evokes negativity in my head. But the reality is that I need it. I need to be able to say no to even the good things that are simply distractions.

I’ve lost my attention span. Do I really want to find it?

Focus is an area of struggle for me. I am prone to multitasking. Everyone knows men can’t multitask. Why we continue to try, I’ll never know. Nevertheless, I’m often found with music playing, seventeen browser windows open, and a blank word document floating in the background. Empty.

It’s likely to stay empty, too, unless I focus. So here are 3 tips to help:

Pick a steady soundtrack. I’m certain I first heard this on writing excuses… someone was talking about what they listened to while writing, and basically said he had three or four CDs that he listened to on repeat. They were fairly anthemic (I think one was the soundtrack from Braveheart), and yet could be played in the background without being distracting. I’m trying to do better at this, so I can cease stopping myself to ask “What did that song just say?”

(Aside: duh, songs don’t say anything!)

Turn off the orange button. Chances are — if you write on a laptop, anyway — that you have a switch or button that enables your wifi connection. Did you know it disables it, too? That’s right! Push that button, and you’ll be cut off from the internet. Not so handy if you’re researching, but it usually doesn’t take more than a few seconds for your wifi connection to, well, reconnect. The rest of the time, your email won’t ding, your instant messenger notifications won’t notificate, and you’ll be left in relative peace.

(Aside: don’t try that one if you use google docs online to write in. You’d probably lose some work).

Do Less. Leo Babauta said it better than I ever will. But I’ll say it here where you’ll read it. Slow down! Save a life. Wait, wrong campaign. Slow down! Save your sanity! That’s the truth. Empower yourself to do the things you want to do. For me, that’s meant taking the time to get ahead on this blog so that instead of being a burden, it’s become a joy. It’s also meant saying no to more extra-curricular things. But it’s good, because they weren’t the things I needed to spend time on.

So there you have it. Three ways that you can refocus today. I hope it helps. I hope it helps me too… I’ve got to get back into my groove!