Your Focus Needs More Focus!

Week 2: Restoring Focus – Grabbing Your Own Ears

Last week we asked the uncomfortable question: Is your attention being hacked?

If you actually tracked where your mind went for a few days, the results were probably brutal.

Welcome to Week 2: Restoring Focus.

The Day a 4-Year-Old Taught Me Everything About Presence

“Is someone important trying to you trying to grab your ears?”

The lesson was this:

We often hear people say that our time is the most valuable asset since it is constantly ticking away, and we can never make any more of it…. Cliche, right?

Chase taught me that my time, WITHOUT MY ATTENTION, was pretty much worthless to him!  Time management is futile without attention management, which is what we call FOCUS!  In today’s world, technology has permeated our lives, offering unprecedented distractions. Trillions of dollars are made every year by Hacking our Attention.  And please don’t give me the multi-tasking line.  Multi-tasking is a myth.  We can only focus on one thing at a time.  Multi-tasking is simply SWITCHING between tasks; it’s not Focus.  Later we will train you how to hold your Focus and thereby exponentially improve your productivity and enjoyment of life. 

The average person checks their phone 362 times per day - once every 4 minutes they’re awake. We now touch our phones 5,427 times a day on average. 67% of people experience “phantom vibrations” thinking their phone buzzed when it didn’t. The attention economy is now valued at over $3 trillion annually when you include advertising, social platforms, and streaming.

And the people who love us most are still trying to grab our ears — only now they’re competing with infinite push notifications.

Here’s the reality check:

1. Microsoft’s 2023 study showed the average human attention span has dropped to 8.25 seconds — shorter than a goldfish.

2. RescueTime data (2025) shows knowledge workers switch tasks every 3 minutes and 5 seconds.

3. A 2024 University of California study found that it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to regain deep focus after an interruption.

Yet the same research shows that even one hour of undistracted deep work per day can double your meaningful output in a year. Focus isn’t a personality trait. It’s a muscle that’s currently atrophied in 99% of adults.

This Week’s Assignment: Grab Your Own Ears

For now, simply practice “grabbing your own ears” and consciously shift your focus away from things and people that are not Truly Important to you and toward the ones that are.  The exercise is the shift.  Each time you consciously shift focus back to where you want it to be, it’s like a mental push-up.  Practice, practice, practice!

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