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Selective Ignorance: A Blessing in a World of Chaos
Ignoring Your Way To Success
The more selective ignorance you cultivate in your life the more time you’ll have to the things that matter:
- Get your news from only a few respectable sources and only check them at specific times at the end of the day.
- Treat checking emails as a to-do. Schedule two specific times to process email: late morning and late evening.
- Turn your device into a minimalist phone. Turn off notifications and sounds and delete unnecessary apps.
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Too Much Information, Too Little Time
While our brain has about a million GB of space, the real limitation or constraint is the time and mental energy. We do not really know how much physical energy we require just to do some mental work.
We need to focus on selective information, actively deciding to not engage in junk news consumption, and other mentally draining activities, saving our mental bandwidth for things we want to focus on.
Selective Ignorance: Saying No To Stuff
- Though we would like to, we cannot learn everything and do everything.
- We need to be selective in our choices while consuming content from diverse sources, provided we find it enjoyable and worthwhile.
- We have to say no to a thousand things to be able to focus on what truly matters and to cut out the noise.
- Focusing selectively helps in removing distractions, reducing stress, and improving concentration.
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Endless choices are rabbit holes to nowhere
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Intentionally moving forward
The best decision-makers purposefully avoid almost all of the options available.
To commit to one decision means closing the door on everything else. It takes confidence to say, "This is what I'm serious about. I can't be distracted by everyone else's noise and agendas." If you're serious about achieving goals, you must create an environment that shields you from other noise.
Strategic ignorance
Strategic ignorance is not about being closed-minded. It's knowing what you want.
It's realizing how easy a person can be derailed. You even avoid amazing situations that you know is really a distraction. You create boundaries and live your priorities and values and dreams.
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Default choices
90% of your daily decisions happen automatically, many shaped by your environment. Thus, most decisions are a habit, not a deliberate choice.
To make smarter choices, design smarter...
Designing your life
Design your life like a choice architect:
- Encourage smarter decisions you want to do by making them more accessible.
- Add friction to habits you want to quit, making them less accessible, or remove the option to perform them completely.
Richard Thaler
“First, never underestimate the power of inertia. Second, that power can be harnessed.”