The Attention Crash

If you want to learn how to blog, go read Marc Andreessen's new weblog. I haven't absorbed many other blogs as deeply as a I have his - at least since he started writing it a few weeks ago.

Marc says that we're not in a Web 2.0 bubble and I have to agree. We're not seeing nearly as many millionaires minted as we did the first go round. That's a sure sign.

However, there is definitely a bubble and therefore a crash coming. It's not financial. It's not related to the level of noise or startups. This crash is personal.

We are reaching a point where the number of inputs we have as individuals is beginning to exceed what we are capable as humans of managing. The demands for our attention are becoming so great, and the problem so widespread, that it will cause people to crash and curtail these drains. Human attention does not obey Moore's Law.

I have seen this in my own life. I am applying some of the principles Marc wrote about here as well as practices that Tim Ferriss describes in his amazing book, The 4-Hour Workweek. I look forward to getting more tips when I meet Tim in person this week. I am particularly trying to reduce my need to check email dozens of time per day.

More importantly, I have become fascinated with Tim's use of the 80/20 principle, which Gina describes here. With this philosophy in mind, I have trimmed projects, RSS feeds and emails to hone in on the 20 percent that's most important. It's also why I am not trying every new site that floats in my inbox and deleting pitches that are clearly off topic w/o even reading them.

My attention has reached a limit so I have re-calibrated it to make it more effective. I think this issue is an epidemic. We have too many demands on our attention and the rapid success of Tim's book indicates that people will start to cut back on the information they are gorging.

If this happens en masse, will it cause a financial  pullback? Possibly if ad revenues sag as a result.