The internet and your attention

You are busy. You have many demands on your time and atten­tion. Never, under any con­di­tions, hes­i­tate to ignore any­one or any­thing that’s not mak­ing good use of your atten­tion. Ever.

The ever-insightful Mer­lin Mann. The first thing I did was to stop fol­low­ing him on Twit­ter; he asked for it.

I sup­pose this also means I should focus my RSS read­ing on things that will help me learn, will enlighten me, or a selec­tive set of qual­ity dis­trac­tions (because — let’s face it — I will read Dinosaur Comics).

I also think that Face­book fits in here some­where — their lack of RSS mean­ing I just shouldn’t bother vis­it­ing their site perhaps? — but in gen­eral, I do think that a lot of the social sites are the chief com­puter dis­trac­tion for me (and I’m guess­ing Mer­lin too, as he brought it up).

Any­thing else I should con­sider? I’m a sucker for good read­ing online, on a vari­ety of top­ics, but I also rec­og­nize the need to limit oneself.