Hard time focusing?

It’s not just you that’s having a hard time focusing. I have a feeling the problem might not only be related to your digital life. The digital world is training your brain to expect rewards all the time, so when you're not stimulated, it's hard to focus.
​

Let’s shed some light on the biggest contributors to that and give you tangible solutions to reclaim your focus.
​

• We live in an attention economy. More valuable than your time is your attention and all the big players know it. The entire digital world is primarily set up to capture your attention for as long as possible. They've hacked the human brain and know just what levers to pull to get you addicted.
• You’re encouraged to hoard. Online space is cheap. It’s easy to save everything and the people who created the platform typically get paid when you pass the small threshold for a free account and then you have to pay.
• You’re promised the next app is the solution and you really want a fresh start. Unfortunately, they haven’t taught you how to effectively use the app so it becomes another dumping ground.

​

So what do you do about it right now?

​

1. Get ruthless with your email subscriptions 🛑. You can search for content you need or subscribe to the email list for coupons when you’re ready to shop. They’re sending that stuff all the time. Seriously, choose 5 or less subscriptions that provide REAL value that you ACTUALLY read regularly. Tip - consider using a tool like Sanebox (this is an affiliate link) to help get control of a seriously messy inbox, or hire us (discovery call link).
2. Turn off notifications 📴. Turn off notifications for apps you don’t NEED notifications for. This is going to take a few minutes. It’s a manual process like email unsubscribes, but it’s so worth it. In some cases, you actually might want to turn them on for your phone, but you’ll want to turn off the email notifications, or vice versa.
3. Hide tempting apps 🫣. Can't stop checking your email, try hiding the apps in a folder on a page other than the home screen. Consider deleting the app as an experiment and see if you truly need it. You'll find it's HARD at first because your brain is addicted to the behavior. Stick with it and the impulse goes away after a while. Out of sight, out of mind.
4. Delete stuff ♻️. Clean out the digital closets. You’ve got a bunch of them. Start with the folders or apps you use the most. When going through this process ask yourself if you’ll ever REALLY look at this again and why should you keep it. Be ruthless, you’ve got too much stuff already you’ll never look at again.
5. Close accounts you don’t need 👋. Dropbox, 6 different Gmail accounts, Hotmail, Asana, Todoist, Nozbe, Notion, Evernote… Get the stuff you need out of there and delete the rest. Maybe the entire account. Less is more. Pick a primary account and keep it tidy.

​

Got a big mess and need some help cleaning it up? Book a free discovery call with me to talk about what it might look like to work with us and find out what your ROI on digital organization looks like.

‍