It is no longer just about changing your passwords or clearing your browser cookies. In this hyper-connected era, where AI-curated feeds and constant notifications are the norm, digital hygiene has become a vital practice for protecting our cognitive focus and emotional well-being. Most of us wouldn't go a day without brushing our teeth or washing our hands, yet we often allow our digital lives to become cluttered, chaotic, and intrusive. This lack of boundaries has a documented impact on our internal state.
As our attention spans and cognitive abilities are increasingly damaged by digital overuse and AI-mediated shortcuts, the ability to focus deeply and learn something in depth is quickly becoming a critical skill. Never have we had such broad access to information. And never have so many people felt unable to concentrate long enough to truly master anything. Learning is everywhere, yet depth feels elusive.
The next big meeting on your calendar might not have any other attendees-it might just be you. A growing number of high-performing leaders, including managers at Google and other Fortune 100 companies, are carving out protected "focus blocks" and treating them like mission-critical meetings. With constant pings, shallow tasks, and back-to-back calls, this might be the only way to produce strategic, high-value work. Google and Microsoft have even rolled out Focus Time features that automatically block off calendars to protect deep work.
"There's a deeply human satisfaction to retreating to an exotic location and wrestling with your own mind, scratching a record of your battle on paper," Cal writes. "The innovations and insights produced by this long thinking are deeper and more subversive than the artificially cheery bullet points of a chatbot."
