for the last years I have mercilessly exploiters the internet in order to grow
my solicitors practice my business so I've used blogging and view social media
marketing and I've used email marketing and I've used YouTube and I've use
LinkedIn and abused and I'm using Facebook and Facebook advertising to
grow my business and quite frankly without the use of social media and the
internet generally and electronic or digital marketing digital media I
wouldn't have a practice today that's for sure because I simply could not rely
on word of mouth or the old way of doing things in a solicitor's practice did he
innocently suspect is the old way of doing things would have been to refer to
or to rely on referrals from one person to another but I simply didn't have the
time for that and it couldn't couldn't afford to waste so I have mercilessly
explosives the internet and digital marketing and quite frankly I would
strongly recommend that you do the same thing if you're in business but the
focus of my video today is something that and back knee against for the last
little while and I've noticed a problem the problem is this there is an enormous
problem or difficulty with the distracted nature and the interruptions
caused by your apps in your phone and your apps on your computer so on any
given day you're going to get interruptions from phone calls text
messages perhaps facebook messages whatsapp messages snapshot messages and
you're going to get notifications then about email about Facebook about friends
birthdays you're going to get email notifications
and depending on how you set up both your PC your computer your laptop on
your phone you may well guess audible notifications as well as visual all of
these things create a major problem because I have noticed in the last 18
months or so that my attention span is getting shorter and shorter in other
words I would find it harder to focus on particular work particular deep work
because I would describe us because of the interruption and because of the
distractions created by the various notification and so recently I kind of
did a little bit of research into it and it came across a very very useful book
called deep work it's written by a PhD a professor in the United States called
dr. Cal Newport basically he sets out a thesis in the book about the difficulty
and problems about social media and but the problem that you have or the task
that you have if you particularly use your head for for living the problem
that you have in terms of doing focused concentrators deep work he makes her
draws a distinction a huge distinction between shallow work and deep work
shadow work he would categorize hours answering emails responding to text
messages or whatsapp messages or snapchat messages answering phone calls
returning emails and so on this is shallow work it's interruptive this can
be compared with deep focused work it gives an example of the philosopher or
psychologist or whatever he was Carl Jung who before he did his best work
with some sort of a cabin in the woods I think in Switzerland in order to write a
book which ultimately took on and challenged Freud's various views or
philosophies teachings in the whole area of psycho-analysis room salon he gives
another example of social media tycoon who in order to rise I think it was
write a book or to come up with a business proposal actually bought around
the world airplane ticket so that he could actually write the book completely
own interruptive this is something that if you are using your head for living
particularly if you're in a white-collar job if your solicitor or if you're an
accountant or if you're not engaged with your hand and perhaps working in a
factory whatever but if you're saying certainly sitting in an office and
you've accessed your phone if access to you to your computer you've access here
a laptop then you probably know as well as I do that there is a massive problem
with the number of destruction such a face on a daily basis I would time
fighting myself the whole issue of the shortening of my attention span and
there's a famous sort of quotation or factoid trotted out that our attention
span now as human beings is actually shorter than that of a goldfish because
of the advent and growth of social media and so on now there probably is ways to
measure the attention span of a goldfish i'm not sure but that seems you get the
point i think we all recognize i think you recognize it as i do that we all
like the little hiss when our phone buzzes or whether the message or vendors
a vibration of vendors sound organ there's a visual notification of a new
message or whatever but the bottom line is all of this really does add up I for
example use email marketing hugely in responding to queries in responding to
questions in responding to potential leads potential clients but in
responding to all of those email messages I get a lot of them I'll I get
a lot of them through facebook as well for example in responding to all of
those it is very very easy to become the strike
and to become a torn away from work that you might need to be doing the focused
concentrated work that you might need to be doing on a particular case or a
particular claim or a particular letter that you're writing or maybe it's a blog
post your writing maybe it's something else you're doing but regardless I think
it is very very useful to consider your own situation in terms of your attention
span is in shortening are you fighting focus because if you are i'd recommend
that you read the book it called deep work rules for focused success in a
distracted world it's written by a man called they had dr. kyle newport I put a
link to it in the description down below and I would like a bandit push I would
caution you generally to guard against your attention span getting shorter and
shorter to the point where you're not capable of doing good quality focused
work and it's 720 in the morning now and I'm sitting in my office in enfield item
into the office as early as I can certainly try to get in 47 clutter from
not to us cooler another reason for that is because between seven o'clock and I
and clock in the morning I can get completely and only interruptus own
distracted work done because I don't have to worry about the four main I
don't have to worry about people walking in off the street I will have emails
boss I can ignore those on to say nine o'clock or whatever but the bottom line
is if you like me are working in salon your head basically in your job or
you're working in an office you can starting a business if you don't sorry
you should certainly indeed if you're a student you should definitely be very
very mindful of the dangers of shadow work distract us interruptions from the
various social media sites and so on and you really do need to stay in touch with
an ability to focus and focus deeply on what that really matters hope you find
this video useful my name is Craig re methylation and phylogeny you might be
interested in subscribing to my channel and if you think the videos useful you
might hit the like button below thank you love