The more often you will recognize the unimportance of the background, the more often and quickly you will be able to switch to what really matters to you.

What happens in those seconds? Where is your attention now? If I mostly read the chapter, then I am very grateful to you, it is really nice. And it also says that you are focused on the study of this information, which means that at the present time our topic is particularly relevant.

The ability of the brain to focus attention and concentrate on one thing in spite of constant information noise, flow of thoughts and emotional outbursts is one of the most important human advantages. And we can use it not only for cognitive functions and performing important tasks, but also for regulating the level of stress and improving the quality of life in general.

Along with the progress and the constant growth of the possibilities of this world, the number of stimuli, noise and meaningless information flashes is constantly increasing. Everything distracts us both from current tasks, important tasks and work, and at a more global level - from our own desires, goals and life itself.

Imagine the situation. The office of the “open space” format (dozens of people sit in a huge room; the working space of each is conventionally delimited by small partitions; from personalization, only the ability to swap objects on the table is depressing). You are trying to work. Today was a particularly difficult morning, thoughts are confused and will not gather in a clear chain. And around are dozens of clicking computer mice, sonic printers, quiet and not-so-talk, nose sniffing, creaking of chairs. In general, an annoying background.

The presence of such a background prevents you and the more you think about it, the higher your irritation and indignation about this matter. What to do? Stop, understand that this is just a background. Slowly switch the focus to an important task for you and focus on it.

How to do it? Perhaps, we will remove some of the unnecessary reasoning and terms and simply introduce the working mental model.

Imagine a runner (tuner) that moves horizontally. On the left edge of the horizontal written “Background”. On the right - “Important”. Slowly, calmly, smoothly move the slider from left to right to the extreme point. This switch shifts our focus from an unnecessary and meaningless background to our report. Now all our precious attention is focused on what is important for us.

What happened to the background? We removed the focus from him, we lowered the quality of his perception, importance, volume, brightness and other distracting indicators.

We are serious people, we have something to do without a background. And in case if we again begin to distract something, we will not worry and be distracted. We just calmly sit down, relax our limbs, imagine mentally (with eyes closed) the switch and smoothly move the focus control towards the “Important”.

And it's okay if after some time this very regulator slides to the left side, it's okay if the neighbor's chair starts to creak even louder or opens the window, which will increase the noise level. It's not scary. After a few minutes, our brain adapts the regulation system and we calmly translate the focus slider from “Background” to “Importance”.

And when you get up in the evening in a traffic jam or take a ticket to the end of a long line - do not despair and do not get annoyed. The background means nothing, it is not important. You have music, an audiobook, interesting thoughts, dreams, thinking and a switch that in a matter of seconds can shift the focus from the bustle of the world to things important to you.

And the more often you recognize the unimportance of the background, the more often and quickly you will be able to switch to what really matters to you.

The background will never go out of your life. Moreover, its number, frequency, level of irritability and the number of attempts to penetrate your life will only grow. 20 years ago, mobile phone, Internet and television were local phenomena. A telephone existed to call. The Internet was only available in combination with a computer. Television with its advertising got you only when you do not call on the phone and do not sit at the computer.

And today it all fits in your pocket, it is always with you. It enhances unnecessary background, stimulates the growth of stimuli and distracts you from the main thing.

And it’s good that you now have a switch that can at least sometimes return you to what you yourself determine is important ...

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