Nathan Chen: Olympics, Focus & Smartphones
(<1 Min Read) Simple method to stop getting distracted
Winning a Gold Medal while setting up a new World Record in the Olympics is no small feat. And last week, we saw Nathan Chen do just that.
Apart from this enormous accomplishment, the story making rounds in media is that Nathan Chen did not bring his smartphone to the Olympics1 but instead took his guitar.
What’s interesting about that story is that, like us, world-class Olympic athletes are trying to avoid smartphones when they want to focus. So much so that they are going to extreme lengths to overcome it. Especially at the time when performing on the big stage.
Although we mere-mortals are not performing on the big stage, we do suffer from the same problems, i.e., the ability to focus as smartphones continue to defragment our attention span.
The good news is that we can adopt the same technique as Nathan and leave our smartphones behind. It’s simple to practice and I would highly encourage experimenting with it.
Start by leaving smartphones in another room when working from home or eating dinner with the family; leave them in the car when going for that walk. It will take some practice but the gain in focus and increased attention span is definitely worth the effort.
If you still insist on keeping the smartphone near, here are four tips on how you can reduce the distraction, if not eliminate it entirely.
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While it is also possible that his smartphone got lost, stolen, broken, etc. But based on the news, not taking the smartphone to the Olympics seems an intentional decision.