If you ask people around the world, “What’s the most valuable resource today?” you might hear some answers like:
"Gold!"
"Oil!"
"Time!"
All these things are indeed valuable - but they are not the most valuable resource in society today.
The most valuable resource in society today is...
Attention.
Our lives are more efficient and easy with technology - but also vastly more complicated.
We have the power at our fingertips to learn and discover almost anything. We can seamlessly connect with people around the world. We can highlight and solve injustices and inequalities that were previously hidden.
Yet - with great power comes great responsibility (shoutout to Uncle Ben - and no not the Uncle Ben on your rice packet).
One of technology's biggest drawbacks is its constant and overwhelming demand for our attention.
No time in history has had to manage the number of distractions we have to deal with today. News, emails, messages, notifications, advertisements - all these things are constantly battling for our attention.
And in today’s society - the social media industry is the attention empire.
How do you think companies like Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Meta (who also owns Instagram and WhatsApp), X (Twitter), and TikTok became worth billions and trillions of dollars without selling anything? ¹
Because social media companies sell you - and your attention - to advertisers. ²
To advertisers - your attention is the most valuable commodity - and they are willing to pay millions of dollars to social media companies to have it.
“We are in a time where we've sort of accepted the unrestricted, unregulated mining of the human consciousness, the harvesting of human attention. We are the resource and I think it takes its toll.” – Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants, on Your Undivided Attention
How do these companies get (and maintain) your attention?
In the fierce battle for our attention - social media's strategy is to promote more provocative, extreme, and emotional content. ²
Social media companies have found that the most “interesting” and "engaging" posts usually have aspects like:
Magnified language like “This is the greatest restaurant in the world!”
Photo alterations via artificial intelligence and filters
Extreme and ignorant positions - especially on political topics
Inappropriate content - like people essentially naked
Moral-emotional words like “abuse,” “disgust,” “pride,” “gratitude,” and “greed" ³
Posts with these aspects can depict a false reality and narrative about ourselves and the world.
Yet - not only do people tend to like and engage with this content more - but so does the algorithm. ³
If social media is the empire of grabbing and maintaining attention - the algorithm is the king.
The algorithm decides what posts get shown - and what posts are hidden.
It’s like a sick game - if you are more civil and authentic - you get punished via your posts getting hidden.
If you are more extreme and dramatic - you get rewarded via the algorithm promoting your posts.
What people also don’t realize is that in this process - we are essentially working for these companies for free.
The goal of marketing is to reach your target audience and grab their attention.
Many Instagram users already create attention-grabbing content - so companies pay these popular users (often influencers) to continue making more of it.
The algorithm doesn’t care about showing you posts from people you follow.
The algorithm doesn’t care about showing you what’s real.
The algorithm doesn’t care about how the shown content can affect broader societal aspects (cough cough, Brexit ⁴ & Trump winning the 2016 election ⁵, cough cough).
The algorithm cares about showing you content that keeps your eyes on the screen, the like and share buttons being hit, and you scrolling more.
“I like to say that algorithms are opinions embedded in code…and that algorithms are not objective. Algorithms are optimized to some definition of success. So, if you can imagine if a commercial enterprise builds an algorithm to their definition of success, it’s a commercial interest. It’s usually profit.” – Cathy O’Neil, PhD, Data Scientist and Author, in The Social Dilemma ⁶
How to Take Control of Your Attention (FOCUS)
Attention is the most valuable resource for two main reasons:
1. It is extremely scarce.
There are only so many waking hours in the day - thus, there are only so many things we can focus on.
When we pay attention to one thing - we’re not paying attention to another thing.
2. What you focus your attention on shapes your reality.
Social media shows you the best of the best and the worst of the worst - both of which aren’t good.
Seeing the best of the best can cause you to compare yourself to the false reality being shown - making you believe you and your life aren’t good enough.
Seeing the worst of the worst can cause you to think people and the world are evil - which isn’t a healthy way to live.
Instead - if you focus your attention on habits like eating clean, exercising consistently, sleeping enough, and nurturing your mind - you will become your best version and live a happier life.
It’s like riding a bike or motorcycle - you’re taught to focus your attention on where you want to go.
If you’re riding a motorcycle and there’s a huge cow in the road that you fixate on - you’re going to hit the cow. If you look to the left of the cow - you will avoid it because that’s where you directed your attention. ⁷
3 Steps to Control Your Focus
1. Organize your phone.
Your phone can be a productivity booster or a productivity waster - depending on how you choose to use it.
Check out my article here to learn how to optimize your phone to help you achieve your goals - not distract you from them.
2. Bind Bad Habits
Three main strategies can help you constrain your bad habits to free your time and attention: physical binding, time-bound binding, or categorical binding. ⁸
Physical binding: create physical distance between you and your bad habit(s). An example of physical binding is not keeping junk food in your house to improve your diet. Another example could be getting rid of cigarettes or marijuana to curb the habit of smoking.
Time-bound binding: abstain from your bad habit(s) for a set duration. An example of time-bound binding is going on a 30-day fast from alcohol or processed foods. Another example could be only going on social media between 7-7:30 p.m.
Categorical binding: eliminate certain activities or “substances.” An example of categorical binding is only using YouTube for educational purposes. Another example could be creating an "ingredients list" and only consuming food from that list.
3. Plan Your Week
Using the boundaries you made in the previous step and your goals - plan your week.
If something is not on your calendar - it won't get completed. The second something else comes up - you'll continue to push back the "thing" you've been meaning to do.
Planning your week also makes you conscious of whether your actions are aligned with your goals.
I like to use Google Sheets to do this (download the template here).
I'll create a template that has time allocated for all my most important tasks/goals with the location where I'll complete those things. Including the location is critical because if you know exactly where you're going to do something - you are more likely to do it.
I'll leave blank spaces in my template to fill in with more specific tasks for that upcoming week.
For example - instead of just filling in 8:00-12:00 with "work" - I'll fill it in with the most important task for that day (say, "Build Staff Page of Website").
Throughout the day when I have short breaks - I'll reflect on what I've completed in the day and modify my day if needed.
During these times - I'll highlight the different cells in my day accordingly.
I'll highlight beneficial tasks like working out, reading, and eating dinner in green. Green means good - that my time and energy were used for something productive.
I'll highlight detrimental tasks like scrolling on social media or watching TV in red. Red means bad - that my time and energy could have been used for something more productive.
I've found this strategy helpful because it gamifies my time and schedule. Seeing a bunch of green cells in a row makes me motivated to not break the streak.
3 Tips to Help Plan & Optimize Your Week
1. If it's on your weekly template - you can move it around - but don't delete it
I try to keep my days as close as possible to how I planned them - but life happens and I might need to move some things around.
I try to only include the most essential tasks in my weekly template - the ones that provide me the most value.
If something is on my weekly template - I'll move it around - but I won't delete it.
For example - if my friend invites me to a concert on Friday night and we have to leave by 5 p.m. - I'll move my Friday workout to Saturday or Sunday. As long as it still gets completed within 1-2 days from the day I had planned it - I'm happy.
2. Dedicate time to planning your week and miscellaneous tasks like checking emails
You need to dedicate time to planning your week because it will make your life less stressful and more productive.
If most of your weeks look the same - say you work from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. and exercise from 5:30-7 p.m. on Monday-Friday - then planning your week should take less than 20 minutes if you log all these activities in your weekly template and just duplicate it for each new week.
Also - most people significantly underestimate how long miscellaneous tasks like checking and responding to emails take.
Make sure these tasks get scheduled to ensure (1) they get completed and (2) they don't take more time than necessary.
If you only schedule 30 minutes a day to check and respond to emails - you'll do things like unsubscribe to pointless newsletters so this task is easier.
3. Reflect on the week once it's over
At the end of each week - analyze the number of green and red cells you have highlighted.
Are there any trends? Is most of the time you're wasting coming from the same activity? Is most of your productive time occurring around a certain time of day?
Aim to have fewer red cells than you did the previous week. This step is essential to make small improvements from one week to the next.
To better yourself, you need to better understand yourself and how your time is being spent.
Limitless access to knowledge brings limitless opportunity. But only to those who learn to manage the new currency: their attention.” - Mark Manson ⁹
Without mastering your focus and time - achieving success is impossible. Not just from a professional standpoint - but also from a health, relationship, and spiritual standpoint.
The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your focus.
To you and your focus,
Maximillian
Download the Weekly Schedule Template to master your time and focus
FOOTNOTES [1] World Top Social Media Companies by Market Value as of 2023. (2023, July). Value.Today. https://www.value.today/world-top-companies/social-media [2] The Attention Economy. (2021, August 17). Www.humanetech.com. https://www.humanetech.com/youth/the-attention-economy [3] Brady, W. J., Wills, J. A., Jost, J. T., Tucker, J. A., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2017). Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(28), 7313–7318. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618923114 [4] Cadwalladr, C. (2019, April). Facebook’s role in Brexit -- and the threat to democracy. Ted.com; TED Talks. https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_facebook_s_role_in_brexit_and_the_threat_to_democracy?language=en [5] Netflix. (2019). The Great Hack | Official Trailer | Netflix. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX8GxLP1FHo [6] Netflix. (2020). The Social Dilemma | Official Trailer | Netflix. In Netflix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaaC57tcci0 [7] TOTW: Target fixation: You Go Where You Look . (n.d.). The Blog Formerly Known as McWiki. Retrieved November 1, 2023, from https://themcdonalds.net/totw-target-fixation-you-go-where-you-look/ [8] Hu, E., & Nguyen, A. (2022, April 4). Too much pleasure can lead to addiction. How to break the cycle and find balance : Life Kit. NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/31/1090009509/addiction-how-to-break-the-cycle-and-find-balance [9] Mark Manson. (n.d.). In The Future, Our Attention Will Be Sold. Mark Manson. Retrieved November 1, 2023, from https://markmanson.net/attention-economy
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