Working in the Age of Distraction

Ideas are easy, execution is hard

Finishing big projects takes so much time that we often kind of lose sight of how far we've come in the process. And unfortunately there's no built in progress bar.

"Creation is in large part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions." - E.B. White

And I think having those visual indicators of progress is really powerful.

So because of advances in technology, it's really easy to see progress when we're doing relatively meaningless, short-term tasks like processing our email...While it's incredibly difficult to see our progress when we're engaged in the long-term creative projects that are really going to have an impact on our lives. And the upshot is that we end up spending an inordinate amount of time on distractions and busy work because it feels like we're making progress, but that progress is pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things. So what do we do?

It's incredibly easy to be busy, but it's incredibly difficult to be deliberate, to stay focused. And the thing is, you can’t actually produce anything of value without being focused.

Once we understand why we’re so addicted to distraction, we can be more conscious about how we confront it in the future.

It’s very difficult to avoid distraction when you’re not extremely clear on what you would rather be doing.

The idea is to invent progress hacks that make your creative work as addictive as email or social media.

If you let go of the assumption that someone expects you to say yes, it actually becomes significantly easier to say no.

You only live once, so, let’s spend more time on the work that matters.

You must say NO to opportunities, in order to say YES to your priorities.