The Jam Theory aka Yesterday's Jam: The Theory of Attention

You don't have a focus problem, you have a jam problem.

Ok, hear me out...

I have this theory, and I call it Yesterday's Jam, or The Jam Theory.

Imagine you wake up and your hands are covered in strawberry jam.

This jam represents your focus and attention for the day.

We start the day with a fresh supply, and then maybe we pick up our phone and scroll, maybe we open our emails, every time we take an action, we lose a bit of jam.

We leave some jam stuck on every email subject line.

We lose some jam opening some junk mail that comes through the letter box.

We lose some jam wrestling with the cutlery drawer that always sticks on the first few tries, but it never quite enough to bother fixing it.

We lose a whole bunch of jam being stuck on that Tik-Tok scrolling cycle, and on Instagram looking at the holiday photos of someone we haven't seen since school.

And by the time we actually get to a task that we want to give our full time and attention to, like an important work presentation, or being fully present with our children, our hands have got a lot less jam on them.

They are only slightly sticky.

So this isn't some weird fever dream I had, this is how I like to think about the concept of attention residue (a psychology term first used by Dr. Sophie Leroy).

The Jam Theory visually represents how we give away our attention and focus throughout the day,bit by bit, often without even noticing.

We don't protect it enough, and we think of it as a limitless supply, until of course, it's used up and we find ourselves struggling with our attention and focus.

But the problem isn’t that we can’t focus. The problem is that we’ve already spent too much of our jam before we get to the things that actually matter.

So everyday I ask myself "what happened to yesterday's jam?" and "where do I want my jam to end up?"

When we protect our attention, we get to spend it on the things we value most.

Does this resonate with you? Let me know!