Focus
Earlier today, someone asked me how I stay focused.
"With everything going on in the Middle East right now, how can you focus on your work and family?"
Well, I have a secret.
The latest I could find from a quick Google search says that the average American spends an hour per day watching TV news. I suspect it's higher than that, especially during election cycles.
But let's put it at an hour total, including internet or social media news.
That's a lot of time. Seven hours per week is an entire 9-5 workday, counting a lunch hour.
But let's be honest - nobody follows the news for an hour straight.
It's ten minutes on the morning news, 5 minutes during the mid-morning break, a quick check at lunch, and another session after supper.
Or whatever - you get what I'm saying.
The point is that if you let it, the news becomes a constant ongoing thing to keep up with.
In other words, it becomes a distraction.
And now it's presented to be politically divisive and stir us up so that we'll keep watching, and their ratings can keep going up.
They have turned us into news addicts.
And for what?
We can't even remember the latest crisis in the 24-hour news cycle and couldn't have done anything about it anyway.
What's more, if you DO want to do something about it, you can go do whatever you want. Except the news itself is nothing but a distraction from doing what you want to do about whatever the talking heads are yammering on about.
So, yeah, I have a secret.
I'm not paying attention to what's happening in the Middle East.
Or much of anything else in the news, for that matter.
And, before you accuse me of being heartless, it's not that I don't care. I know enough about what's happening to know it's terrible.
Really bad.
People are dying in horrific ways.
But what can I do about it?
Nothing.
Not a damn thing.
So why would I sit around watching the minute-by-minute news coverage?
I don't. Instead, back to the question, I focus on my work and family.
BTW - if you want to get a quick dose of daily news from a [mostly] unbiased source that you know at least what's going on, check out the 1440 Daily Digest.
It's free, you can thank me later.