Attention Is All You Need

Attention is the capital we bring to social life. Socializing and working are, at their core, exchanges of attention.

We all have the same amount of time, but we differ in how much attention we can bring together. Some people think more deeply and broadly in a short period and seem to handle problems with ease. We often call this talent, but the ability to concentrate can also improve with practice.

Some people keep trying to focus for longer, gradually becoming better at settling into a task. Others divide their attention or give up early whenever concentration is required. Over time, a gap opens between their abilities to solve problems. People who excel in one field can often carry their ability to focus into another.

In The Bed of Procrustes, Taleb writes something that I would translate as:

If you need to listen to music while walking, then neither walk nor listen to music.

That line struck me when I first read it. We like to keep our attention occupied: watching videos while eating, listening to podcasts while exercising, playing music while studying. These habits are not necessarily wrong. But when we do several things at once, it is hard to give ourselves fully to any one of them.

I used to listen to music while working out, then noticed that I was not paying enough attention to my movements, muscle engagement, and breathing. Only when I tried focusing on the movements alone did I realize that music was a distraction for me. The same applies to studying, running, cycling, and eating. If multitasking helps you relax, that is fine. But if you want to do one of those things well, you need to bring your scattered attention back.

Looking beyond ourselves, society also runs on attention. Socializing means caring about one another and exchanging attention. Work means giving attention in return for pay. Social media and shopping apps constantly compete for our attention because it generates profit.

Attention is your capital in social life. Protect it, and do not give up control of it lightly.

After all, attention is all you need.