Herbert Simon won the Nobel Prize in Economics. He was one of the early thought leaders in the field of “attention economics.”

In 1971, he told us: “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

(This is worth a re-read and memorization: “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”)

He also told us that all that information creates “a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

Now, again, Simon told us that in 1971.

1971!! We were decades away from the internet and smartphone technology. What were you doing in 1971 beside protesting the Vietnam War? I wonder what Simon would say today? “Double-down on your effort” is probably what he would say. In case you are not in touch with this subject, have you noticed how distracted we are these days?

Now, here’s the thing. It’s easy to read Simon’s quote and say, “Wow. Yah. That guy was wise. So true.” And then go on utterly destroying our attention as we indiscriminately consume an astonishing amount of meaningless incoming data.

In the book, The Checklist Manifesto, there are three reasons we err; 1. Necessary fallibility: Some things are just beyond our capacity; 2. Ignorance: Some times we just don’t know how to do something; and, 3. Ineptitude: Some times we KNOW what to do, we just don’t do it.

Authors Cal Newport and Eric Barker say that being able to focus your attention and go deep is the superpower of the 21st century. Why? Because when nearly everyone is allowing their attention to get destroyed, those few of us who go in the opposite direction look like superheroes.