September is a month when we leave summer behind and adopt a back-to-business mindset. It is a time to reset our priorities, our expectations, and our intentions. This is going to be a month about what matters most, about the complexity of life.
The intention is that this series of posts will lead you from awareness through insights, disruption, and clarity with the help of psychologically anchoring thoughts and useful takeaways. Empowering you to escape the noise, confusion, and the commonplace, and discover what truly matters to you.
We get so wrapped up in the turmoil of our lives that everything becomes urgent when, in reality, there are few things that are really important.
Why modern life feels overwhelming
The feeling of modern life being too much is really based on our perception of receiving constant streams of information and push notifications. It is fed by false beliefs that every message that passes into our inbox requires a response right away. This constant pressure zaps our concentration and has our brains on high alert.
Our brains simply are processing more daily information, email, and news; it is more than our brains can handle and causing an overload of information.
The device’s dings and buzzing sounds go on to bother us during the whole day. Our brains are so trained to artificially hurry. We think every text message or unfinished task feels like an emergency.
And what’s powering this entire thing? Operant conditioning. Those constant alerts and constant demands for an immediate reply trick you into thinking you have to respond NOW. These things are not an inevitable side effect of modern life-these are behaviors we’ve been trained in.
Digital applications are based on this continuous cycle of reward and punishment, where positive feedback in the form of updates, likes, comments, and so on triggers the release of pleasure hormones. Where negative feedback, a pause, or a glare becomes a punishment. These effects, in the long run, create habits of our attention, stress levels, and more through repetition rather than conscious choices.
We get conditioned to false urgency when the messages require you to quickly get back to them or try to avoid a punishment when you are unable to respond. The messages are targeted pushes that urge you to act fast.
It’s not about changing the way we do things; these digital strategies have found a way to tap into our heads. This ecosystem has been built on addictive loops, intermittent rewards, and patterns that prey on a deep level of what we want as people: to bond, belong, and feel secure.
It’s not just technology.
It is an intentional design with the intention to match the human environment. How these two fields connect: behavioral designers and tech leaders apply behavioral science, similar to architects applying blueprints, for a reason, with intentionality and a desired outcome. To encourage you to act or to buy something.
The desire that drives it all is quite basic: grab a potential customer’s attention and make that attention an asset capable of generating profit. Creating a virtuous cycle so you do that action more, almost without thinking.
That’s because that addiction, in essence, mimics the brain’s own reward and learning process. In other words, these systems don’t accidentally influence us. They’re engineered to train us.
Why our attention drifts toward the wrong things
Our brains focus on the wrong stimuli as we evolve to seek easy wins rather than hard, fulfilling ones. Operant conditioning takes place below the level of consciousness; we don’t actually think, “I must feel this urgency.” We become trained for the perceived outcome.
Our brains take advantage of simple tasks that provide a quick dopamine rush. We feel that the ringing of our phone or unread email commands our attention, causing us to sacrifice much of our effort on important, large-scale objectives because our brains find this too hard.
The thought of a large, all-encompassing, or vague project can trigger a latent source of anxiety, causing you to revert to daily routines that have become your comfort zone; larger projects are generally less comforting.
There is no silver bullet for refocusing; you’re simply developing new habits or building better ones around focused tasks. We can cut major projects into small, simple steps to make them feel less intimidating to your brain.
A good technique is to create a distraction shield for those high-priority times when your focus can be laser-sharp. I like to choose one high-impact goal each morning and work on it before I check my inbox.
How complexity distorts priorities
Complexity distorts our priorities because a cluttered environment overloads our mental capacity, causing us to lose sight of what truly matters. When everything feels complicated, our decision-making breaks down.
The side effects of complexity: decision fatigue and a superficial focus. If there are too many decisions, your brain will eventually burn out and make it difficult to effectively make good (and high-impact) choices later in the day. If there is too much information available, your brain will scratch the surface on a lot of things, rather than go deep on a critical few.
It’s like spreading yourself too thin with too many things on your plate; you really only end up doing a little bit across many things.
Go on an information diet. Don’t consume everything that comes your way. We can filter much of our reading by limiting the input. As they say in the database world, and in spreadsheets, it’s garbage in, garbage out.
Your brain serves as a biological information system; the information, media, and ideas you feed it directly dictate your thoughts, decisions, and overall output.
Here’s how that translates from the computer into people’s minds. Garbage data consists of doomscrolling, rage bait news, toxic arguments on social media, and endless short-form videos. Your brain eats up the garbage data and releases waves of dopamine while leaving you chronically stressed, anxious, or with a short attention span.
This is where we see the diluted impact: junk in, junk out; an unhealthy data diet causes brain fog, poor decision-making, lack of motivation, a cynical worldview, and wasted time.
Signs you’re focusing on the wrong things
You’re focusing on the wrong things when everything you do isn’t aligned with what matters the most. This can leave you feeling tired and depleted, going absolutely nowhere. When your inner action plan doesn’t add up to your destination, you then feel this disconnect within, leading you into an endless, cyclical pattern that sabotages your productivity.
We need to learn to spot the early warnings. Your to-do list gets done, and you put in endless hours, and you still get nothing out of it. Feeling busy does not equal fulfillment.
Jumping between your email and your chat, from one tab to another, you dart from one task to another, mistaking that speed for actual productivity. Avoiding ambitious or meaningful tasks because they feel difficult or lack a clear starting point.
How do you reset your unconscious mind? Although this might fit into a high-impact project, you could track your time for 48 hours to see exactly how many hours go to shallow work versus deep work.
Break the initial phase of any project down so that the first step is something so utterly trivial that it seems almost ridiculous to write it. Delay your response. Take two breaths and make them between task-switching in order to stop automatically drifting into distraction.
Final thoughts
Why does this feel overwhelming?
Because operant conditioning works below conscious awareness. You’re not choosing to feel urgency. Your brain has been conditioned to anticipate consequences.
In databases, validation rules stop bad data from being entered in the first place; remember: junk in, junk out. Set strict boundaries on your inputs. Use blockers to stop low-return websites, unfollow any accounts that create a strong negative emotional response, and turn off any unnecessary notifications.
Schedule time each month to review your screen time and subscription list. Then ask yourself: Am I using this type of content to enhance my growth, or am I just filling time?
Define your high-quality input. Intentionally replace mindless scrolling with deep-dive books, educational courses, long-form essays, or quiet reflection. Seek out data that challenges you to grow rather than data designed to keep you addicted.
Ask yourself, “What am I giving time to that doesn’t actually matter?”
Next Friday’s blog is about the Law of Triviality: why we obsess over small stuff and how trivial work hijacks our lives.
Recommended reading
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, by Cal Newport
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, by Barry Schwartz
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t’ Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again, by Johann Hari
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport
Citations
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