The Best Way I Know To Get Clear On Your Vision and Avoid Distractions

“Simplify, simplify” – Henry David Thoreau

My wife and I have an agreement: she names the kids, I name the dogs. I named Huxley, our first pup, to remind me of what’s so easily forgotten.

In 1941, Aldous Huxley published two essays on the vital importance of minimizing distractions:

“Verbalized Idiocies, spoken irrelevances, all utterances, indeed, that do not subserve the end of enlightenment must be classed as impediments, barriers between the soul and ultimate reality. They may seem harmless enough; but this harmlessness is only in relation to mundane things; in relation to spiritual and eternal ends, they are extremely harmful.”

Distractions have become a cornerstone of our modern world. They offer pleasure in exchange for the two non-renewable resources we have: time and attention. These distractions – the social media, unsocial media, and everything else – are framed as free.

Organizations seek to mine our attention, one thirty second clip at a time. These free “services” cost too much.

The best defense against such threats is a good offense.

Decisions

The mental landscape is won by premade decisions.

Through Jiu Jitsu I spend ample time with high-level law enforcement officials, the men that receive training from military special forces. A constant theme of our conversations is the importance of premade decisions.

In combat, premade decisions save precious seconds and prevent wrong choices. They are a lifeline of order amid chaos. Premade decisions preserve attention and maximize effectiveness while in hostile territory.

We exist in such a territory, but it’s far more subtle. A wrong decision to open that app or read that non-related news article doesn’t cost you your life, but it does cost you your time.

And what is our life but our time?

If we are to avoid the world of modern distraction, we must get clear on one premade decision that is the mother of all others.

“Does it take more towards or away from the mountain?”

The powerful writer Niel Gaiman gave a commencement speech, “Make Good Art”, about the artist’s journey of creating a life in which he or she can make the art they are put on this earth to do. It doesn’t matter what that art is, what matters is that you do it.

Early in his career, he framed his dream of becoming a writer as a distant mountain, with his task being to get to that mountain. Whenever he was presented with a career decision, he simply asked:

“Does this take me towards or away from the mountain?”

Defining your mountain is the ultimate premade decision.

This is the sharpening of the ax that Abe Lincoln spoke of. This is the getting your house in order that the good book preaches. This is how we honor Huxley’s wisdom and fend off distraction.

Defining Your Mountain

What are you here to do? What is your vision of a compelling future? What is the life you seek to build?

The clearer we become on the vision of this distant mountain, the less powerful distractions will be. Because once we know where we are going, it’s easy to see all the paths that lead us somewhere else.

This simplicity preserves time and attention. This clarity expands mental bandwith and capacity. Because we invested the attention in getting clear on our mission, we need not burn mental calories in the day-to-day trenches of modern living.

This is the one decision that removes a hundred decisions. Here’s the trick:

The more specific you define your mountain, the easier decision making becomes.

So how do we do it? Here’s what worked for me.

The Exercise

I have done the same exercise for fifteen years. For a decade this was a daily practice, now it’s something I return to each week. It’s as simple as it is effective.

Grab a notebook and a pen. Write about the life you want. When you feel like you’ve defined your compelling future, you’re done.

Tomorrow, turn the page, and do the exact same exercise.

Somedays your vision will vary. One day I would write about living in Colorado, the next I’d be envisioning a cabin in the Pacific Northwest. When I was feeling particularly adventurous, I’d write about living out of an escape van.

There were differences, but there were also commonalities.

I wanted a successful BJJ school. I wanted to write books. I wanted to spend time in nature. I wanted to write books. (yes, I meant to write that twice)

These differences in vision didn’t matter. What mattered was that I wrote. I kept writing, day after day, and then something magical happened.

Over time, the variability of my dreams evened out and I began to write the same vision every morning. My distant mountain became clear. And once it did, I kept writing. Day after day describing the same vision.

Why? Because I was exercising my primary decision-making filter. This investment of time saved me countless time and attention throughout my day. When life presents me with a decision, I simply ask:

Does this take me towards or away from the mountain?

Simplify

With my vision set, I know how to engage with my world. The random messages on IG and FB that eat precious moments now get batched to 5 minutes a week. The news articles with the catchy headlines have nothing to do with my mountain, so I have nothing to do with them.

I don’t dabble in hundreds of books because I know the ten I actually need. I can let relationships wither on the vine because I know the handful that truly matter. I am free from the frustrations of business and worldly affairs because if it pulls my attention away from my goal, it costs too much.

This clarity is not just additive, it’s multiplicative. Every increase in clarity increases effectiveness and purpose. There is the goal, and there is everything else.

And the world conspires in convincing you to value everything else. One more time from Aldous, circa 1941:

“Men have always been a prey to distractions, which are the original sin of the mind; but never before today has an attempt been made to organize and exploit distractions, to make of them, because of their economic importance, the core and vital center of human life, to idealize them as the highest manifestations of mental activity.”

I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that there is a war for our attention. Our greatest tool in winning that battle is a clear vision for our future. And the clearer that vision is, the more blurred the distractions become.

When you know what you are here to do, it’s easy to see all the things that are not that.

And that, my friends, is most things.