© Scott Riley 2019
Scott RileyMindful Designhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4234-6_1

1. Attention and Distraction

Scott Riley1 
(1)
Nottingham, UK
 

Attention is a precious mental resource. Every day we are bombarded with decisions and trivial things we need to remember. What should I wear today? Should I even get dressed? Can I just hide under the duvet until June? Where did I leave the keys? Is there enough milk left for cereal? Even though we can seemingly instantly and instinctively answer most of these questions, there is a very real cost attached to each and every one of them.

Behind the scenes, our brain—through a process of selective attention—is constantly assessing our environment and deciding what occurrences or stimuli are important enough ...

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