“What we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore — plays in defining the quality of our life.” — Cal Newport
I asked a client — John, who else — to track every time he picked up his phone during a working day. He guessed it’d be maybe fifty times. The real number was over 200. He wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t undisciplined. He just had zero boundaries around the thousand tiny interruptions asking for his attention every hour.
What would your day look like with even half your interruptions removed?
The Real Cost of a “Quick Check”
Neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley defines distraction precisely: it’s “goal interference — noise that degrades the ability to achieve a goal.” The research backs up how expensive that noise really is. A Dscout study found people touch their phones up to 2,617 times a day. Gloria Mark’s research at UC found we switch activities roughly every three minutes and five seconds, and that regaining real focus after an interruption can take up to 30 minutes. Harvard researchers Killingsworth and Gilbert found we spend 47% of our waking hours not actually paying attention to what we’re doing.
Workflow consultant Edward G Brown calls the people responsible for pulling your attention “time bandits” — and the antidote is building “time locks,” fixed blocks where nothing gets in.
Tim Ferriss put the uncomfortable truth simply: “it’s not that you don’t have enough time or are too busy; it’s just not a priority to you.”
Feeling this one? You don’t have to figure it out alone — book a free High Performance Call and let’s talk through where you’re at.
Four Ways to Take Your Attention Back
- Identify your specific goal interference — name your actual time bandits.
- Set real boundaries and build time locks around your highest-value work.
- Rank tasks by true value, not by whichever one is loudest.
- Practise mindfulness — Jon Kabat-Zinn defines it as “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment,” and that skill transfers directly to focus at work.
Take action: Build one 90-minute time lock into tomorrow. Phone in another room. One task. No exceptions.
This is Radical Ownership over your own attention — the one resource nobody can take from you unless you hand it over, one notification at a time. Protect it like your commission depends on it, because it does.
If you’re ready to reclaim your focus, book a free High Performance Call.
About Jet Xavier
Jet Xavier is a High Performance mindset and accountability coach who works with real estate agents, principals and team leaders to build sustainable, high-performing careers. Learn more about Jet.
This piece began as a column for Elite Agent — you can read the original here.
