Focus

These days, it’s hard to focus on a task for long without being interrupted by a notification of some sort. The endless torrent of buzzes, dings, popups and bulletins has become a fact of life for many of us. It’s as if we’re engaged in a continuous competitive battle for the right to control our own attention. The enemy in this skirmish is the notification. The notification’s objective is to seize control of our attention, away from the free will of our own intention and towards whatever unsolicited, unreviewed content that they represent. As human beings, we must ready ourselves for engagement with this enemy as best we can. The first step is to increase awareness of the enemy’s strategy.