James Frost on singletasking and focus:

It’s a problem that feeds itself. Checking your e-mail or Twitter account and finding a new message or some new updates from your friends is very… moreish. Each new ‘thing’ you discover is like a reward for your brain – well done!, it says, you checked for a thing, and you found one!. And so you check again. And again, and again.

This could not be more true.

Modern technology makes it easier than ever to be distracted; for your focus to be divided. Everything is at your fingertips. The problem is that if you’re trying to write a report on the computer and your brain keeps diving off to skim through some websites, or check your e-mail, or see what your friends are up to, it leaves very little time to actually devote to what you were trying to accomplish in the first place. And every time you check on one of these things, and your brain gets that little reward, it spends more and more time looking at more and more things. Ergo, you don’t finish that report – never mind, I’ll finish it tomorrow. But tomorrow, you’re just as distracted. You feel bad for not finishing, but your brain can’t help seeking its little rewards. It becomes a habit. An addiction. So the downward spiral goes.

This post is great, he really hits the nail on the head. I encourage everyone to read this post, there are simply to many good passages to quote them all here.

via James Frost.

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