Foreign [Music] Ly read stolen focus by Johann Hari Focus equals fulfillment Without deep focus we fail to complete Rewarding projects and settle for Shallow work Without sustained focus on a big goal we Wander through life To paraphrase Victor Frankl what man Needs is to strive and struggle for a Worthwhile goal And without internal Focus we lack the Self-awareness to know what worthwhile Goals to pursue Therefore to find fulfillment we need Three forms of focus Spotlight Starlight and daylight A study Spotlight allows us to focus Long enough on a task to make meaningful Progress or acquire valuable insights Starlight helps us see our North Stars Bart worthwhile long-term goals and Daylight helps us monitor our day-to-day Actions and build the self-awareness we Need to know which long-term goals to Pursue Unfortunately our Spotlight Starlight And daylight are getting dimmer by the Day thanks to two troubling trends the Great acceleration and the gradual Deprivation Troubling Trend number one the great Acceleration
In 2013 a discussion in the top 50 Trends on Twitter trended on average for 17.5 hours three years later a top 50 Discussion trended for just 11.9 hours On average The fire hose of information were Exposed to every day forces us to skim Information impatiently which reduces Our desire to go deep on a subject or Tackle challenging work Just think back to a time today or Yesterday that you skimmed through a Huge amount of information like when you Went through a backlog of email caught Up on your group chats browse the latest News scan a few Reddit posts or scroll Through social media Did that rapid skimming leave you calm Present and willing to do deep work And how much of the information you Consumed do you remember now Scientists who study professional speed Readers consistently find that more Speed leads to less comprehension They also find that the faster people Read the more likely they are at a gloss Over challenging and complex material Johan Hari says my desire to absorb a Tsunami of information without losing my Ability to focus it was like my desire To eat at McDonald's every day and stay Trim an Impossible Dream The size and capacity of the human brain Hasn't significantly changed in forty
Thousand Years Troubling Trend number two the gradual Deprivation Over the last 100 years the national Sleep Foundation estimates that the Average sleep per night has dropped by 20 and it's getting worse In 2017 Netflix CEO ree Hastings Admitted that his company's goal was to Keep us up at night watching shows and Movies he said we compete with sleep and We're winning Companies like Netflix Facebook and Google have long used armies of Engineers to capture our attention and Delay our sleep every night But today companies are deploying Advanced AI that have learned from Millions of hours of human behavior to Optimize content and shorten our sleep Even more Tick Tock is just the first Example of how addictive AI driven Content can be If we have a 6 a.m wake-up time we might Assume that going to bed at midnight Instead of 10 30 won't be a big deal Because we're only losing 20 of our Sleep The problem is that 80 of our REM sleep Occurs in the final 20 of the required Seven eight hours we need each night During REM sleep we process and organize The information we absorb during the day And if we miss 80 of our REM sleep we go
Into the next day feeling mentally full And unable to concentrate and easily Absorb new information Sleep researcher Matthew Walker has Found that 10 days of 6 hours of sleep a Night was all it took to become as Impaired in performance as going without Sleep for 24 hours straight So how do we counteract these troubling Trends Well the first step is awareness When we are aware that rapidly skimming Information breeds impatience which can Spill over to our projects and Relationships we will be more inclined To act We'll be like the frogs in the pot of Water that's getting hotter that realize It's time to hop out The first thing we must do to prevent Our attention from being boiled away is To abstain from checking our phones when We wake up and refrain from turning on The fire hose information for at least 60 Minutes whatever's in our inbox or Social feeds can wait an hour We must use our first 60 Minutes of the Day to restore our daylight Starlight And spotlight We restore Daylight by reflecting on Three questions what matters most to me What are my strengths and values and how Can I be uniquely valuable to others We can find Starlight by writing down
Our long-term objectives and thinking of Some weekly and daily goals that will Get us to those objectives And we can strengthen our Spotlight by Going deep on one daily goal until the 60 Minutes has elapsed Whatever we choose to work on we should Do it slowly and methodically As Hardy says slowness nurtures Attention and speed shatters it After the 60 Minute morning abstinence We can check our phones but we must add One additional step to our phone Checking routine When we unlock our phone we must open up Our favorite eBook reader app first and Read a few paragraphs of a book before Checking email group chats stock prices News feeds social media feeds or going Into our browser If we use this book first approach when We check our phones we will condition Deeper Focus because books encourage us To go progressively deeper on a subject By reading well-researched content in a Linear fashion rather than manically Skipping from one thing to another When we're reading a book our attention Isn't assaulted by ads recommended Content or numerous search results Mihetric sent me high the men who Studied the flow state for decades found That reading books was the simplest and Most reliable way for people to
Experience flow Sadly only 50 of Americans read a single Book a year gallopels have found that The number of Americans who read less Than one book a year has tripled between 1978 and 2014. Let's reverse this trend by reading a Few paragraphs of a book a day in Condition our minds to go deeper on Content and counteract the great Acceleration Now to combat chronic sleep deprivation We must expect that every night our Technology will keep us up unless we Pre-commit to a good night's sleep In Homer's Odyssey a ship captain named Ulysses got his crew to time to the Ship's mast so he wouldn't jump into the Water when he heard the beautiful half Woman half-ish creature singing in the Sea We can tie ourselves to mass before Sailing into the nighttime so we don't Leap for our devices and get sucked into Content that prevents us from getting REM sleep Some physical pre-commitments include Removing all apps from our phone that Keep us up at night like Twitter Instagram Netflix YouTube or mobile Games and putting them on a tablet Device that we lock in a drawer two Hours before our ideal bedtime Or scheduling an app blocking program
Like freedom to block all apps two hours Before bedtime Or installing a 10 programmable power Switch to cut the power to Smart TVs two Hours before bedtime so we can't watch Our favorite shows or tune into our Favorite news networks Some social pre-commitments include Declaring to our families that from now On we will turn off all devices at 8pm And play games or read books If we're on our devices after APM we'll Feel like hypocrites We can also give our phones to our Partners and tell them not to return Them to us unless there's an emergency And if posting and responding to Comments on Twitter or any other social Media app keeps us up at night we should Pre-commit to stop using that app for at Least two months by pinning a post on Our account that tells the world we Won't be using the app for the next two Months In the end we must reclaim our focus by First being aware that skimming Information all day is degrading our Focus and then actively develop two deep Focus habits The 60-minute daylight Starlight Spotlight digital content abstinence in The morning and the book first phone Checking habit throughout the day Then we must prioritize sleep with
Physical and social pre-commitments to Stop ourselves from giving into Temptation Johann Hari says we have to decide now Do we value attention and focus does Being able to think deeply matter to us Do we want it for our children If we do then we have to fight for it That was the core message that I Gathered from stolen focus by Johann Hari This book is a great wake-up call that Everyone should read I highly recommend It If you would like a one-page PDF summary Of insights that I gathered from this Book just click the link below and I'll Be happy emailed to you if you already Subscribed to the free productivity game Email newsletter this PDF is sitting in Your inbox If you like this video please share it And as always thanks for watching and Have yourself a productive week
