George Kao records a first-person end-of-year epiphany about chronic distractibility and the value of narrowing attention to a few high-leverage "worthy problems." He explains drivers of fragmented attention (advancing attention-capturing technology, media, gaming, sleep disruption), contrasts that with the creative and moral benefits of calmly, joyfully sustained focus over weeks-to-months, and lists practical countermeasures (rearrange phone icons, limit notification checks to inbox time, schedule social/news browsing, practice mindful chores and breathing). He concludes by naming two "worthy problems" he feels uniquely positioned to work on: why solopreneurs struggle and how to help them grow their businesses, and invites viewers to share their own examples.
Chapters
So I had an epiphany today. I'm going to share that with you. And I can't believe it took me this many decades to get to this epiphany. And I'm sure this thought has come to me multiple times in my life, but, like, I believe that learning and growth is kind of like a spiral. Like, we come back around to the same lesson, but this time we apply it more deeply, we apply it more broadly, we apply it more wisely. And the lesson that I've come around again to, again, I'm recording this at the end of the year. I think this is applicable any time of the year, but it's applicable whenever you are preparing to start a new chapter for yourself. And like, a new chapter could be the start of a year, start of a quarter, start of a month, start of a new week, even start of a new day, you know, or some other transition. You're like, okay, it's time to simplify and focus again. The epiphany comes in several parts. One is that I. I'll just speak to myself and see if you can relate to this. I am increasingly distractible. I think it's multiple factors. One is technology keeps on improving and technology companies, media companies keep improving their ability to addict us to media, social media, just media in general. You know, by media, I could mean news, could mean YouTube, could mean Netflix, could mean whatever, whatever technology, technologically driven media, it gets more savvy over time and the technology gets better to study human attention. And what gets human attention and therefore stronger, more powerful algorithms and ability to addict us to coming back to the media platform again and again. And also games. Games is another form of, you know, media addiction that I. I've struggled with for all my life. So we are. I know I am. Well, studies show society is increasingly distractible. And I've just gotten to a kind of a breaking point myself. I'm like, wow, I am. My attention is very fragmented these days. I mean, even like songs in my head, you know, like, just won't go away. I listen to a song just won't go away, and it's hard for me to think about anything else except for that song. So it's things like this. And I think sleep is affected by that. And when sleep is affected, ADHD is affected as well. Right. There's recent studies showing that ADHD and circadian rhythm have. Have a connection. But sleep, poor quality sleep affects everything, right? Every. Our quality of attention throughout the day. So that was the first part of the epiphany is like, oh my gosh, I'm just going here, going there. Notifications, social media idea this, idea that. And then the second part of the epiphany is. When I am able to calmly, joyfully focus for an extended period of time on a project, I tend to create something more worthwhile. Now, extended period of time doesn't necessarily mean that I have to spend four hours straight on this thing. It could just mean that I focus on something for a year or even three months. My goodness, you know, even three months. So it could be like I keep coming back to this again and again and again, whatever my work rhythm is best. And distractibility means that I tend to like flip from this thing to that thing a lot of times during the day. A lot of context switching, which is not great for focus and productivity and deep, deep work, deep thinking. So I want to revive my ability to stay calmly, joyfully focused on what is worthwhile. And the final part of the epiphany was therefore, everything is distraction. Everything is distraction except for the problems that I am best positioned to work on that I am most uniquely qualified and positioned to work to help solve. And the foundations of life. Faith, health time, quality time with loved ones. Anything else you want to add into the foundations of life, Healthy living. Right, but everything else is distraction. Like, like I started this morning once I had the epiphany, I started a note on my phone that says distractions, parentheses and what to do instead. And I'm going to be tracking them throughout the day. So, for example, watching YouTube videos, I mean, I don't. Yeah, I mean, I guess when I'm doing chores or whatever, I watch YouTube videos, but also just throughout the day, like if I'm, if I'm not at a meeting or working, I put on my earphones and listen to YouTube videos. And these days I can just summarize YouTube videos using Google Gemini. It's funny. And YouTube now has a summarize button, right? You can use AI to just summarize for you. Because I'm basically learning, I'm not getting entertainment. Sometimes I watch stand up comedy or listen to it anyway, and sometimes I listen to music, but most of the time it's like learning stuff. And I'm like, first of all, and by the way, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. The only thing that's not a distraction is listening and watching my courses. That's the, that's one of the most important things in life. Everything else is distracting except for my courses. So just want to let you know. And my videos and all of my content. So everyone else is distraction. Okay. Okay. Everything, including my content, is a distraction. No, I mean, so, like, if you're learning and you're focused on a course, I think it's fine to. I think it's fine to, like, listen to it when you're doing chores or whatever. But I'm just doing random YouTube videos. Like, whatever interest that I have, I just, like, put it on. There's infinite, infinite, infinite, infinite amounts. Right. Podcasts, whatever you want to call it. And so I'm like, I've done that for years now. And what I want to do instead is I want to summarize YouTube videos in my free time. Sometimes I, you know, five minutes here, five minutes here, I'll just summarize and. Oh, learn something interesting. But even the learning a new thing is a dopamine loop that we have to be aware of. It's a dopamine loop. It's a. It's. It's a good addiction. I mean, better than, you know, crack cocaine, but it's still an addiction. I don't know. I've never done crack. Okay, maybe crack cocaine is better than my courses. But, you know, you just. There's infinite things to learn and infinite media that wants to put it in front of you to learn it. So. Okay, so what I'm going to do instead, instead of, like, for example, watching YouTube videos or is I'm going to do things with mindful joy. Like, if I am washing the dishes, I'm going to just practice not letting my mind be fragmented and practicing adhd, which then gets into the rest of my life. More adhd, but, like, practicing, like, mindful chores. Mindful, joyful. I can practice breathing. I can practice my virtues. I can practice connection with the divine. Those are all good things. And then focus on what I'm doing. I'll probably do it better. I do a better job of whatever chore I'm doing. Okay. Another example is songs in my head. Okay. I haven't. I have ear. Earworm. I guess that's what they call it. Very frequent. Like, if I try to calm my mind, like, Careless Whisper starts playing or something like that. Like. Like, whatever, you know, it's like, whatever songs in my head. You know, last Christmas, it's all. It's all George Michael. Interesting. Don't let the sun go. Oh, no. It's all George Michael. So. So whatever song I've been listening to lately, it's like, it's going to be in my head. So I'm like, the. The practice, that's distraction. The practice is when I notice it breathe and just attention back to the task. But it's going to keep coming back. I just. Oh, noticed it breathe. Okay. Another distraction. The phone, the home icons on my phone. The. The icons, the apps on my home phone screen. I realized like, all the social media was there, the YouTube was there, the game was there. Like, of course, when I turned on my phone, that's what I'm going to look at. Of course. So I said instead, I moved those to the second screen so I would have to at least swipe. And the first screen is just productive things. Another one. Checking notifications throughout the day. Other than Simplero. Simplero is okay. I try to respond to clients and customers, students as quickly as I humanly can. Sometimes that's still three business days. But checking a notification, social media notification throughout the day. Oh, did I get any likes yet? Oh, did I get any comments yet? Oh, how many times a day? I can't even count many times a day. Okay, so instead check them once daily during my inbox time. Because I have a structured inbox time, you know, clear my inbox. Another one. Looking at news and social throughout the day. How many times? I can't count. I just like an off minute here, off minute there. Oh, what's going on? Right? And it's nothing. There's nothing wrong with that other than I know it fragments my mind. I'm practice, I'm training a fragment, fragmented mind. I'm training a fragmented dopamine looped mind. That's what I'm training like. I'm practicing that. No wonder I'm. It's so hard for me to stay focused. So I'm like, okay, so instead of checking social and news throughout the day, I'm just going to look at once after my shower, you know, after my evening shower, it's like relaxed time. And I can, you know, I can spend half an hour doing whatever like, like stuff like that, and that's fine. And I want to keep that time because it's fun for me anyway. So it was very helpful for me to list out and I'm going to keep going. I'm sure there are many other distractions. And then I also, after that, I also created a new note for myself on my phone. Say worthy problems. And thus far I have two. You want to know what they are worthy problems, why solopreneurs struggle and how to help them grow their business. Those are two worthy problems that I am uniquely positioned to Work on. There's lots of problems in the world. Lots of problems, whatever you want to say. Poverty, climate change, corruption, environmental destruction. Lots of problems. But I am not uniquely positioned where I am in my life and profession to have a greatest impact on that for my time spent. So what can I have? Greatest impact for my time and attention spent? Oh, I have a bunch of solopreneurs that I know and I can. And I've been spending years, obviously, but I want to spend more focused, calm, joyful attention. Right. Like there are very few. There are very few. I'm in the list. I'm like, okay, oh, I could do this. I can also work on that. I can also work on that. Come back. What am I uniquely positioned to work on by uniquely positioned? Meaning what am I, what skills do I already have? What network do I already have? What knowledge have already gained, you know, etc. And what I. What has already been shown to be helpful? Like if I do this, it seems to be helpful. Oh, okay. I should do more of that. It's help. It's helping another being. You know, it has outsized impact, positive impact on another being compared to all the other things I could do. I could see it. Yeah. So anyway, that's my epiphany for today. And it was. And maybe this is obvious to you already and that's wonderful. I hope you are practicing these, these things. But if you would like to share anything about what, what it means for you to be distracted versus worthy problems for you, I'd love to know. I'd love to just see more examples so that I can distract myself further. No, so, so, so, you know, I, I welcome your comments and yeah, thank you.
