How to Unf*ck Your Attention Span

5 things that will help if you're missing your old brain

The first time I noticed my brain rotting was when we got Instagram Stories in 2017.

I was working at my Stressful Yet Boring Desk Job™, and it started feeling so much better to lose myself in Instagram than answer an endless stream of customer service emails.

I also accessed a new kind of guilt for looking at my phone during work hours. Now, everyone does it, but back then, I was already feeling like an addict in need of an intervention.

I started leaving my phone in the glove-compartment of my car some mornings — just so I could concentrate. I remember dying to get to my car at lunch to check my phone and bring my baby back to the office for the afternoon.

Good lord, how embarrassing.

I’ve always struggled to concentrate bc ADHD (which I didn’t know I had at the time, but that’s another story). However, it was obvious that the little slot machine in the palm of my hand wasn’t helping the situation.

Me disassociating at my Stressful Yet Boring Desk Job™

The pandemic certainly did a number on the collective attention span. I mean, spending 6 hours a day on Tiktok, quarantined alone in my apartment wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted to build new neural pathways.

If you want to hear more about that, listen to this episode of my podcast.

---

Finding screen/life balance is always going to be a tricky thing, but here are some of the most important things that have helped me take the remaining fragments of my attention span power back:

✌️I made peace with my ADHD (and the pace of modern life)

I often ping-pong between feeling spectacular about my productivity and being completely in a shame spiral about it.

The only thing that actually helps me get over that is trying to make peace my attention span. My energy is unpredictable, the world is increasingly noisy, and more than 40 seconds of focus is actually hard to come by a lot of times.

This one’s about working with myself, not against myself.

📱 I added a screen time widget on my home screen

Okay, first, if your notifications are still going gangbusters, that’s where you should start. Turn that sh*t off, babe.

Second— put a screen time widget on your home screen.

It’s horrifying and shocking to see your screen time if you have no idea what it is, but give yourself grace if you don’t like what you see. Now I know that my point of diminishing returns is around 5 hours a day. Ultimately, you can’t change something you’re unwilling to look at, and this definitely makes it hard to unsee.

If you want to learn how to do that, I’ll show you in this Youtube video

🌿 I implemented Tech Rest

I’ve written this blog and published this podcast about Tech Rest.

If you’re new to the idea, this is the big one that turned my relationship with screens around.

It’s an integrative practice where you lower technology stimulation for a defined period of time — an hour, a day, a whole week; you get to decide.

Tech Rest helps me reconnect with how I’m spending your time and redefines how I experience it.

Still surprises me every time I do it!

🥾 I got more off-screen hobbies

I know this seems kind of obvious, but it must be said:

You’re going to have to replace your screen hobby with off-screen hobbies. Here are some of mine right now:

• reading

• hiking

• running

• singing and playing music

• lifting weights

• writing/doodling in my journal

• putting on a podcast/audiobook and literally just staring into space

👀 I started doing Sit + Stare Time

I started doing this when I wasn’t in the mood for meditation, but I was trying to kick the wake-up-and-scroll-my-phone-habit.

It occurred to me one day that I was casually filling my brain with everyone’s nonsense before I even got out of bed, which made me feel hectic and disregulated just to think about it.

So, one day I woke up, made coffee, left my phone in the kitchen, got cozy on the couch and just sat and stared out the window for 10 minutes … Life changed!

Sit + Stare helps me stay present when I’d otherwise be disassociating and distracting myself with my phone. It feels like it brain cleanse, a bubble of nothingness in a sea of noise.

On top of that, it’s really helped my ADHD, because as much as it’s uncomfortable, it’s good for me to do practice slowing down and being present — this version just happens to be cozy and chill and only takes about 10 minutes.

---

If you’ve started implementing tech boundaries or done anything to help get your old brain back, I’d love to hear what works for you! If something on this list inspires you, what do you want to try? Let me know in the comments.

👉 I originally published this article for Internet People, my business that helps creatives, artists, and entrepreneurs navigate the creative experience in the digital age. Check out what we’re up to here