Like this blog's author, do you have a void you cannot explain? You thought you were depressed and watched many meditation videos on YouTube, and it didn't work? The likes on your excellent morning post weren't enough to cheer you up? Whether you like your job or not, can you never work correctly? Do you feel bad because you can't work or work again because of this feeling and can't get out of this loop? Then, let's see why we lost our focus, faith, and love for everything.
Oh, technology! You are responsible for my problems.
Yes! Technology is responsible for many things, but not everything.
Did you know most people spend 40% of their time on social media or computers? You're allowed to blame technology a little for our focus problem and the void we can't make sense of, but why did you let it take over you so much? That moment when you say, "I can virtually travel mountains, plains, and seas from my computer, long live!"
According to a study, students' focus time is 65 seconds, and office workers' focus time is 3 minutes. Writer Johann Hari says: 'You haven't lost your focus; your focus has been stolen from you.'
Hari says we must act together against app creators who condemn you to photos shared by people, useless information, and war-crying media with 3-second transitions. He can be right. Why do we prefer to live in this cycle? We deprive ourselves of life's real pleasures by pretending we enjoy social media. Why is it so hard to spend the hours we spend looking at coffee photos for a walk in nature?
Not only technology
Because all of these are offered to us in a package, again, quoting Hari, we are used to everything from our food to the encouragement to meditate. And the only way out of this is to act together. For example, we can start by deleting some apps.
Let's list some things that cause us to lose focus: stress, lousy sleep, unhealthy foods, social media, and more.
It's a cycle. Each triggers the other—stressful work to survive, overwork, lack of sleep, followed by a fast and unhealthy diet. Our brain also goes through a loop. Scientifically, our brain is incapable of doing more than one thing simultaneously. But while we turn off WhatsApp and turn on Instagram in seconds, we constantly turn our brains on and off while watching movies on YouTube, which causes us to lose concentration.
Let's take an example that will sound very familiar to those in active work. You sat at your office desk at 9 a.m., turned on your computer, and the feeling of being overwhelmed began when you looked at your emails. Bored, aren't you? Here are 3 minutes for you! Now you have to take a break and get some coffee.
What should we do?
Job seekers and interviewers know this well. Many HRs have asked you these questions: Are you okay with multitasking, or are you good at multitasking? And you proudly say that you are very good at it. Here is one of the reasons you lose focus: browsing your feed in seconds, switching from app to app, or trying to finish many tasks at work quickly. Of course, it should be remembered that multitasking increases stress and causes you to lose concentration even more.
Minimizing distractions is what we're going to do—surfing social media less, trying to be in a place as quiet as possible while doing your work, eating healthy, getting enough sleep, and starting to set little goals. Although it seems very simple, it is evident that we cannot do it. If you want to live a fuller life, enjoy this life to the maximum, and be satisfied with yourself, now is the time to push yourself. Imagine if millions started doing all this at the same time. We would wake up to a more peaceful world.
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Bonus: The Power of Goal Setting
Plus: Beyond Sleep
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