"I recently took a break from my laptop to look at my mobile phone.” 

After a few minutes of doing that… I realised what I was really trying to do then went back to my laptop screen. 

An hour later, I took another break and looked out my window for a few seconds then immediately felt the pull to grab my phone again. After unlocking my I-phone I instinctively swiped down on the screen and typed in ‘INSTA…” only for the app not to show up…  

I then snapped out of my trance and remembered that only a few days ago I had deleted IG in preparation for a situation just like this. The moment of awareness lasted a few seconds before the habit of opening social media apps kicked back in and I searched for Youtube… only for nothing to appear. 

Again, a few days ago I cleverly outwitted my future self and deleted the apps off my phone. 

However smug my past self was feeling…my present self was not happy. 

The dopamine hit wasnt coming. And that made sitting down and just doing nothing quite unbearable. 

I just wanted to do some mindless scrolling and watch a few memes in between intense blocks of work. I mean what's the harm? I thought in the moment of discomfort to just download the app quickly for a 5 min peek inside. 

I opened the app store, downloaded IG and before I knew it a month had passed and I was back to my old habits and my social media hiatus was just a thing of the past. 

The Modern Gold Rush Is Attention. 

The gold rush of our age is attention. You may have heard this before, the idea of the attention economy. 

Companies of all sizes are competing for people's limited attention units.

The reason? The more a brand can grab, hold and nurture your attention into trust over time the more products they can sell you. 

Now if you were someone who wanted to get the attention of a certain audience… you would go to a company that was a master of getting attention and youd pay them for that attention so you could sell your products to those people… 

Remind you of anything?

That is the entire business model of apps like Youtube, FB, IG and TT. They sell attention. 

And the attention they sell is yours. 

You might not be aware of it… 

But they have created and built one of the most addictive substances on earth to control your attention and then sell it to the highest bidder. 

Your attention is limited. 

Now that we understand how our attention is being stolen from us, I want to draw your attention to the research of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a world renowned psychologist who famously named the psychological concept of Flow.”

When anyone mentions flow state, he is the guy who came up with that concept. 

In his book “Flow” he addresses the concept of humans having limited cognitive attention units per lifetime.

“Humans have a limited supply of attention, much of which is necessarily dedicated to routine survival tasks. Thus, over an entire lifetime, the amount of attention left for deeply learning a symbolic domain (like music, physics, or any specialized field) is just a small fraction of this already limited supply”

“This scarcity of cognitive attention units explains why creativity tends to flourish in places or times where surplus attention is available—such as in affluent or culturally enriched societies (e.g., Renaissance Florence, classical Greece), where individuals have the luxury to explore, learn, and innovate beyond immediate survival needs.”

What this means for you 

When you acknowledge that your attention is limited… spending your attention on menial tasks which are inconsequential like scrolling through social media watching memes is actually spending your attention units on something that has very little to no intrinsic benefit. 

My mentor Paul Counsel refers to this phenomenon as cognitive cash. 

If you think of your cognitive cash as an abundant bank balance that we are all born with, that slowly diminishes over a lifetime of focusing on certain topics of exploration, learning and living. 

We spend our cognitive cash on relationships, schooling, working, exercising, surviving and entertaining ourselves. 

And now so, more than at any time in history, we have an overwhelming amount of possible avenues to spend that cash. And as highlighted earlier, one of the biggest expenditures for people is spending that cognitive cash on consuming content on social media. 

How to spend your cognitive cash 

The question I am asking myself now is how do I spend my cognitive cash on areas of life that brings me the best return on investment possible. 

Here are a few ideas:

1.Re-learn the lost art of thinking. 

In the past, philosophers would spend hours lost in thought, cultivating a deliberate space for mental exploration. They understood the value of allowing their minds to wander and deeply engage with topics, often through the use of writing with pen on paper. This wasn't just about structured problem-solving; as the renowned physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson highlighted, significant ideas and creative insights often emerge not from rigorous, focused efforts alone, but from relaxed, reflective philosophical states—moments when the mind is allowed the freedom to wander and explore broadly without immediate practical constraints. This profound contemplation is becoming increasingly rare in today's fast-paced digital world."

2. Time spent with family. 

In a world where everyone is staring at a screen, presence has become a rare gift. When you invest your attention fully into the people closest to you—without distraction—you create moments that last. Moments where real connection happens. No phones. No background noise. Just attention, freely given.

Because your kids, your partner, your parents—they don’t want more of your time.

They want more of you.

And that can only happen when your attention is undivided.

3. Deep focus on meaningful problems.

Instead of reacting to the world’s noise, choose a few meaningful problems you want to solve. Whether in your business, health, relationships, or creativity—complex thinking takes uninterrupted time. It’s slow. It’s uncomfortable. And that’s why it works.

4. Long-form learning.

Podcasts, lectures, books that challenge you—not just entertain you. The kind of content that feels like resistance at first, but stretches your understanding in ways social media never could.

5. Create more than you consume.

Whether it’s writing, building, teaching, coding, or coaching—spend more time outputting than inputting. This is the ultimate training ground for thought.

Each of these choices has one thing in common, they require you to slow down and think. To be present. To be aware of where your attention is going.

If your cognitive cash is limited…

Spend it like your life depends on it.

Because in many ways, it does.

The future will belong to those who can think independently, deeply, and originally.

In a world drowning in distraction, thoughtfulness is a superpower.

And every time you choose discomfort over dopamine… silence over scrolling… creation over consumption…

You reclaim a piece of that power.

Thinking isn’t lost.

It’s just been waiting for you to come back.