On Focus
A personal philosophy I keep coming back to. Not productivity advice. Just how I think about attention.
The Core Idea
Focus is one of the most important things I have. Not time, not money. Focus. Because time and money are useless if your attention is scattered across 40 tabs, 12 notifications, and an algorithm that knows exactly how to keep you scrolling.
Any application, platform, or thing in my life that steals focus from where I want to put it? I unreasonably hate it. Not dislike. Not "mild annoyance." Hate. The kind of frustration that makes you want to delete an app mid-scroll and then feel instantly better about your life.
The Instagram Problem
Here's my best example. I tried to use Instagram for one thing: health-related content. Meal prep ideas, workout form checks, nutrition science. I set it up that way. I followed the right accounts. I told the algorithm what I wanted.
And then, constantly, relentlessly, it sneaks in content designed to pull me off course. I'm trying to learn about protein timing and suddenly it's showing me engagement bait that has nothing to do with why I opened the app.
The thing that gets me isn't that the content exists. It's that I made a deliberate choice about how I wanted to use the platform, and the platform actively works against that choice. I want to be the best version of myself, and I try to set up my tools to support that. But the business model of most social platforms is fundamentally opposed to your focus. They don't make money when you find what you need and leave. They make money when you stay, scroll, and get distracted.
The Anxious Generation Connection
Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation put words to something I already felt. The way our devices and platforms are designed isn't neutral. It's engineered to capture and hold attention, and the cost of that is real: for kids growing up with it, and for adults trying to do meaningful work while carrying a distraction machine in their pocket.
I don't think technology is the enemy. I build with technology every day. I think unintentional technology use is the enemy. The difference between opening an app because you chose to and opening it because your thumb did it on autopilot while your brain was somewhere else.
How I Manage It
Aggressive pruning
If an app doesn't serve a specific purpose I've chosen, it gets deleted. I don't keep apps "just in case." Every app on my phone earns its spot or it's gone. This is part of why I'm running the online presence scrub: fewer accounts means fewer vectors for distraction.
Narrowing the lens when it matters
I love learning. I naturally run wide: business, finance, news, politics, tech, AI. I want to understand what's happening in the world and what's interesting. But when life gets busy or stressful, I narrow the lens all the way down to just what I can control. That usually means my job, the technology I'm building with, and my wife Bailey. Everything else can wait.
Podcasts over social media
I've largely replaced social media scrolling with podcasts. They're long-form, they go deep, and they don't interrupt themselves with algorithmic distractions. I always have something playing: commutes, walks, cooking. It scratches the "I want to learn something" itch without the attention tax that comes with a feed.
Building my own home base
This website exists partly because of this philosophy. Instead of posting on platforms that are designed to distract, I own my content here. One URL, no algorithm, no engagement bait. If someone wants to know what I think, they come here. On purpose.
Resources That Shaped This Thinking
I didn't arrive at this perspective in a vacuum. These are the people, interviews, and research that crystallized what I was already feeling into something I could articulate.
Diary of a CEO: "Brain Rot Emergency"
Steven Bartlett's interview lays out the case that what we casually call "brain rot" is a measurable, documented emergency. Internal documents from social media companies prove they know exactly what their algorithms are doing to attention spans, and they're optimizing for engagement anyway. This isn't a conspiracy theory. The receipts are in the court filings.
Watch on Diary of a CEO →Dr. Anna Lembke on Dopamine and Short-Form Video
Dr. Anna Lembke is a Stanford psychiatrist and one of the leading experts on dopamine and addiction. Her work on how short-form video content hijacks the dopamine reward system is legitimately frightening. The mechanism is simple: rapid-fire novelty creates a dopamine cycle that requires increasingly intense stimulation to feel the same reward. That's not a metaphor. That's the same pathway as substance addiction. Her book Dopamine Nation should be required reading for anyone with a phone.
Dr. Lembke at Stanford →Jonathan Haidt: The Anxious Generation
Already mentioned above, but deserves a spot here. Haidt's research connects the dots between smartphone adoption, social media use, and the youth mental health crisis that started around 2012. The data is hard to argue with, and the proposed solutions (delay smartphones, delay social media, more free play, more independence) are refreshingly practical.
The Anxious Generation →The Bottom Line
I'm not anti-technology. I'm anti-losing-control-of-where-my-attention-goes. Every tool I use should make it easier to be the person I'm trying to be, not harder. When a tool works against that, it doesn't get my frustration. It gets deleted.
Focus isn't about doing less. It's about being intentional about what gets your best attention. Everything else is noise.
ADHD
Everything above about focus hits a little different when you have ADHD. A lot of my systems, my aggressive app pruning, my obsession with removing distractions, exist because my brain doesn't come with a built-in filter. I have to build the filter externally.
I have a lot more to say about this: how ADHD shows up in my work, what strategies actually help, how AI is becoming the best executive function support I've ever had, and the resources that helped me stop beating myself up about it. That content is coming. For now, this is the placeholder.
More coming soon on ADHD at work, systems that actually work, AI as an ADHD tool, and resources worth your time. In the meantime, Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell Barkley is on my books page and worth your time.