Creating An Attention Bubble

So, the second part of the Attention Age doctrine is coming out very soon. 

I hope you’re as excited to discover my secret solutions, as I am to give them to you.

I promise these secrets will change the way you live, work and think – so you can breathe… relax… smile… and make more money, while also enjoying the great gift of life.

But in order for you to really grasp, absorb, and – more importantly – apply the solutions that I’m going to give you, you need to truly understand "The Attention Age” and why we are in it.

I explained the Attention Age (AA) in the first part of the doctrine, but in hindsight I really would’ve liked to have said more.  The purpose of this post, and a few more to come, is to explore and dissect the AA itself. To give you a tour of the “ADD-World” we now live in.

Paradox of choiceThree concepts discussed in part one of the doctrine:  Information Overload, Interruption Overload, and the Paradox of Choice.

These are the three main characteristics of the Attention Age—we are so connected, we are disconnected. We are so frequently interrupted, we are becoming less intelligent. And we have too many choices and options that we tend to make poor decisions.

The world we live in today provides endless content sources of information, and it is more than likely that you will be interrupted during anytime of the day – whether you’re in the office, having dinner, at your first born’s christening, or even while you’re using the bathroom.

Not only are we bombarded with information, but we are also competing for everyone’s undivided attention.

Think about this:  

We are depleting attention at one end, and demanding it at the other – from cell phones, text messages, e-mail, you name it.

So our attention is our most scarce and valuable resource. It’s more important than intelligence in many cases, and is considered to be one of the (if not the) prime factors in determining how successful you are in your career.

Optimizing your attention, and focusing on the correct people and objects in life, can truly make or break you. It really defines who you are and indicates what you will accomplish in life.

As Herbert Simon once wrote,

“In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a death of something else:  a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious:  it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

I would simply add information overload, interruptions, too many choices, clutter, maxed-out bandwidth, psychic ram, and fear of missing out on new opportunities—all consumes our attention.

Now you can see why I deem this period of our life… The ATTENTION AGE.

With this said, what if we didn’t experience these negative effects of Information Overload, Interruption Overload and the Paradox of Choice? What if we were never distracted? What would we get done? What could we really accomplish?

Think about it for a few minutes.

In fact, try this little exercise: 

Take a sheet of paper. Divide it into two columns; have one column be your common attention-drains during your day, and next to it, how much time those attention-drainers cost you. Add up all the time-costs.  Then, in the second column list all the things you would do if you were sitting in an invisible-isolated bubble. Make it a bright, colored, invisible bubble if you would like. Once you’ve filled out both sheets of paper, look at your “color-bubble” list. Ah, what a dream it would be to get all those things done in one work day….

Here’s a secret:

If you’ve ever wondered or been in awe of how much successful entrepreneurs get done – it’s that they spend most of their time in that “colored bubble.”

happy bubble.jpgNow, take a look at your attention-drainers and time (they cost you) list – don’t you just want to scream! What if all those annoying drainers didn’t have to take place? What if you could make that entire left column disappear, so you could act on everything you listed in your right column?

How nice it would be to return to your happy bubble…

And that, my friend, is what the second part of the doctrine is all about.

Secrets to reclaim your own attention, so you can be the productive person you’ve always wanted to be (and are when you’re in your bubble!) And how to capture and hold on to your market’s attention and skyrocket your business (hint: It’s the steps I used to take Strategic Profits from a standstill to 7.5 million in 12 months.)

So, tell me and the other readers: 

What are your biggest attention drains? And what are they preventing you from accomplishing?

Post your comments here… 

I’ll review (as I always do) your comments and do my best to customize my solutions to your situation(s).

 



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Comments:
  • http://www.mach2marketing.com Leona

    Sorry, my website just made it to the bubble side. Thank you Rich for a great exercise. I just wanted to comment that color coding my day helps me. I just highlite different colors on a large daytimer page at the computer, one color for each “area”, and the allot a certain time frame for each task. Pink for Personal time, Blue for Household, Green For Internet Biz, Yellow For Critical To Do’s, etc…or you can even narrow down the “areas” you color code. For example, Pink for Shopping (online or outside), Green for Website building/list building/article writing, etc; Blue for Dinner/Laundry/Groceries, etc… Yellow for “must do now” whether its submit article deadline or answer an email to pay a bill…..etc. It works for me. Now my Yellow will have “Build that Bubble and Pay Attention To My Drainers! Eliminate Drainers!” Thanks everyone for your comments.

  • Pamela Farrant

    Dear Mr Schefren,
    Thank you for providing me with this information, but as you mention I am suffering from “Information Overload”
    There are just too many e-mails in my inbox for me to cope with as I am an old lady and most of my time is spet on domestic chores and looking after an aged, senile husband.
    It is with regret that I ask you to do me the favour of unsubscribing me.
    Thank you,
    Yours faithfully,
    Pamela Farrant

  • http://www.PerformanceLifestyle.com John Allen Mollenhauer “JAM”

    I’m headed into the bright bubble!, I just went through an experience in recent years that took me out of that bubble, put me into the land of interruption and it was costly, especially when you’re up to something you’ve wanted to realize your whole adult life. It requires, not only your attention, but remember, behind attention is life force, it’s your energy. Take your attention and split it up like Rich is saying and then consider how much energy we’re spending and per my experience, your energy can come to a grinding halt… Thankfully I knew how to get out of that situation. Rich, I can’t wait for part II.
    a fan and follower someone I consider a leader,
    John Allen Mollenhauer “JAM”

  • http://wholovesgolf.com Graeme McLeish

    I have been trying to start my own business for the past few months and find that all of the attention drains are what is stopping me.

    The biggest one is procrastination and the inability to take the next step (Not sure if there may be a fear of success in there somewhere also).

    I am going to start doing your exercise on a regular basis and start knocking these attention drains off the list.

    I seem to be like a deer in the headlights when it comes to taking the next step to get my business off the ground. Do you have any suggestions as to what I can do to overcome this?

    Any feedback would be much apprecicated.

    Thanks for all the great articles.

    Kind Regards,

    Graeme.

  • http://www.deletespyware-adware.com/blog Karl

    Luckily for me I live on a small island and hardly take care about these attention grabbing things. I get bored hearing them… actually I know they are not good – I feel as if they are stealing something from me…

    So I agree with you totally. :)

  • http://boerboel.co.za Casper Labuschagne

    I had this problem.

    Then I did 2 things.

    1) Ditched Windows for Ubuntu Linux, totally – but this is not the solution for everybody.
    2) Got a GMail address and set up forwarders for every email from multiple accounts (about 20 email addresses) to Gmail.
    3) Set up about 50 rules in Gmail to move email form x to label y and archive it (does not display all the mail list stuff on the front page of inbox)
    4) Set up the settings in Gmail to show 99 messages per page and not 20
    5) Use the star button in Gmail to decide which emails are important right now and then use the Starred menu option to only show a list of the very important must-do-now stuff
    6) Then I don’t keep GMail open in my browser anymore, I use a Gmail notifier to flash a small little message on the screen for the Inbox mails that I can decide on the spot if I need to break my work routine and pay attention to the mail.

    I run more websites than I can count anymore. I receive about 200 to 1,000 emails per day, of which a fifty or less are really important. My inbox on Gmail hovers between 10,000 and 20,000 messages at any time. I don’t read every email, but I respond to every one that has to be responded to within a day (or two).

    Every email, every reply in Gmail is searchable.

    Then I get about 5 spam messages per day that gets through the Gmail filters.

    On Ubuntu Linux I have no virus package, no spyware, no nothing but the built-in firewall as well as a basic firewall on my ADSL router. I have not a single issue with any of the Winsux rubbish!

    Email can either destroy you or empower you. I chose the second option.

    A fantastic feature is Gmail chat (not voice, text) When I work on a project for a customer I provide a continuous feedback on progress and issues through Jabber or Gmail to my customer’s Gmail address. If the customer happens to be offline, he/she gets all these messages in a digest.

    I hope this helps. Without the benefit of this website, I learned the hard way that success depends on the work done within the no-interruption bubble!

  • http://www.x1concept.com francisco

    Rich,

    just finished reading the entrepreneurial EMERGENCY and the doctrine2 reports – wow great stuff and the amazing thing is you are just giving all this information away for F R E E where others would try to make a big $ on it – thanks for that so much. Thats how the universe works you put good stuff out there and more good stuff will come back to you.

    signed up for your GPS program and can’t wait to start it

    thanks for all

    Francisco

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