Tim Ferriss Quotes

In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: the attention of its recipients.

[…] a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

When information is cheap, attention becomes expensive.

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

Mass attention is almost unattainable and it's not clear that you want it.

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.

For all the sophistication of a world in which most of our waking hours are spent consuming or interacting with media, we have scarcely advanced in our understanding of what attention means.

The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.

In effect, dividing your attention means that neither (or none) of the things you're working on is really getting the full effect of your intelligence, and that it in the end takes you longer than it would if you did one thing at a time.

Multitasking divides your attention and leads to confusion and weakened focus.

Attention is a bit like real estate, in that they're not making any more of it. Unlike real estate, though, it keeps going up in value.

Attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention.

It's a skill that people are born with. Either you're a focuser or you're a multitasky person. I am a full-focus person.

If someone around you is multitasking, you pick up distraction like second-hand smoke.

People today are in danger of drowning in information; but, because they have been taught that information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be. If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all.

The cure to information overload is more information.

Task switching is hard because we do not control what is on our mind. Despite our efforts, the original task continues to occupy our mental bandwidth. Although we can control where our time goes, we cannot fully control how our bandwidth is allocated.

People's minds are overloaded with information.

There's no such thing as multitasking.

I am aware, as everybody has to be, that there's more competition for one's attention nowadays.

We used to think that you could pay attention to five to nine things at a time. We now know that's not true. That's a crazy overestimate. The conscious mind can attend to about three things at once. Trying to juggle any more than that, and you're going to lose some brainpower.

You wouldn't read 'Anna Karenina' and try to work on the computer at the same time, would you?

There's not much point in getting any heavier... there's too many things to read and look at.

There's no such thing as information overload-only filter failure.