Posted by Click aquí para ver este post en español
hey Life Warriors!
In today’s hyperconnected world where technology accompanies us wherever we go, every day we are impacted by countless stimuli that compete for our attention. As a consequence of this, we are dragged into an endless search for the new dopamine hit. Becoming aware of this, eliminating distractions and clearing our mind is key, not only to improve our performance in anything we do, but for something much more important: to be happier.
We have always advocated doing our best to eliminate distractions and be more focused on the present moment, and we have written several articles talking about this topic ( Unlock your super-powers , Living in the present moment , What I learned from my dogs ) . A couple of weeks ago, we read a review in the Revolutionary Fitness newsletter about a Harvard study on this topic. This study shows how our mind wanders while we do different things during the day. One fact that catches our attention is that we spend almost half of the time we are awake (specifically 46.9% of the time) thinking about something different from what is happening at that moment.
The study shows a diagram in which we see how our mind wanders in different daily activities and how much satisfaction these activities bring us. The further to the right and the smaller the circle, the more satisfaction and less wandering. As you can see, what brings the most satisfaction and the least digression is making love (surprise!) but exercise follows very closely:
As a consequence of this constant state of distraction, not only are we less productive and it is more difficult for us to finish our tasks, but we do not enjoy the moment we are living, because our mind is busy thinking about what will come tomorrow or the things we did. yesterday. In the words of the study’s authors, a mind that wanders is not a happy mind .
What can we do to regain focus?
In reality we can do a lot of things, but they all boil down to one thing: making conscious decisions.
Every day we make about 35,000 decisions , but we are only aware of about 100. This is necessary for our survival (it would be impossible to be aware of all 35,000) but within these, a few have slipped in that we can ” de-automate .”
On average, we look at our cell phones 58 times a day . If we divide these 58 times by the 16 hours that we are awake, we see that every hour we look at our cell phone between three and four times. Most of these interruptions are preceded by a notification. A new WhatsApp message , a ” like ” or a comment on a post on social networks… and all these notifications have one thing in common: they are never urgent .
Therefore, the first thing we can do to regain control of our attention is to deactivate phone notifications. Easy right?
Just by doing this, we would already achieve great progress, but there is a second thing that can give us another important boost: planning. The measure of our productivity can be established in the percentage of things we do per day that we had previously planned. When we plan, our rational part comes into play. This is the part that knows what we need to do and what is beneficial for us in the long run. When we don’t plan, our most “animal” part is the one that decides, and this is the part that leads us toward options that give us instant gratification. Planning (and following through) will not only make us more productive, but it will also make us happier .
Summarizing what we have told you today:
- A mind that wanders is not a happy mind. To be happier, eliminating distractions is important
- Possibly our biggest source of distractions is our mobile phone. Switch off push notifications and you will see how your concentration, your productivity and your happiness improve
- Take back control of your decisions and plan in advance; even plan the time you want to spend on social media or watching Netflix. You will see how planning and fulfilling what is planned brings you great satisfaction.
- Last but not least, making love and exercising are the two activities that bring the most satisfaction and the least mind wandering. How much time have you dedicated to these two activities lately? 😉