Seeing Our Attention in A New Way - A Metaphorical View
It's a noisy world out there, isn't it?
From the daily news, emails, social media, Netflix, and everything else in between, it's no wonder many of us feel overwhelmed and unable to focus.
It's like drinking from a firehose; so much information flows at one time that it's hard to make sense of it all let alone process it in a meaningful way.
Over the years, this led me to numerous books, courses, and apps that all promised the same thing: reclaim your attention and get more things done.
I was determined to find a solution, so I tried them all. Some were helpful, but none could give me that lasting sense of clarity I wanted.
My discovery came from an admittedly cheesy, yet very apt metaphor: thinking about my daily media use as I would food.
I realized I was consuming too much of the wrong type of media and was ignoring the healthier, more nutritious types that would provide me with a more fulfilling experience.
In this paradigm shift, I found a better balance between my media use and gained the clarity and focus I was looking for. I started labeling each type of media I consume and ask myself:
"Which among these are healthy for me?"
"If I binge on this, would this make me feel good or bad?"
"Will I still like myself?"
It was like I was giving myself a balanced diet of information, instead of feasting on one source and starving from the rest.
Thinking like this forces me to focus more on what would make me smarter, more compassionate, more creative, and wiser. Of course, not every day is perfect but it's great to have a framework that guides me in the right direction. It's like a map for my attention when I get lost in the sea of distractions.
It's amazing how a simple metaphor can change the way you think.
It inspired me to design a visual thinking exercise and I've used it myself a lot. I even expanded it into a guided journal about mindful digital media use. Originally designed for e-ink paper tablets, here are some of the pages on mockups:
