1. Picture a paramedic on call. When there is an emergency, their attention must be diverted to that emergency. If the paramedic fails to be contacted, there will be unnecessary suffering.
  2. Picture a knowledge worker focusing on some long-term goal (e.g. reducing poverty or advocating for human rights or whatever). Their attention must not be diverted away from that goal. If the knowledge worker becomes distracted, there will be unnecessary suffering.
  3. Point #2 is not literal; human minds work the way that human minds work, not the way that computer programs work. There is a positive level of distraction that needs to be built into a worthy and constructive existence (it’s called “everyday life”).
  4. But if you fall into the description in point #2 rather than the description in point #1, then it really is okay—indeed, it is best—to tune out as much as you can other than your most essential projects (interpreted broadly to include your high-impact work and also things that are essential for your human existence, like family and exercise and hobbies).
  5. If you are serving a community (e.g. people living in poverty; farmed animals), then tuning out external information to a degree that might seem excessive to the average person is really just giving the community that you are serving what they deserve: your sole focus.
  6. (The exception, of course, is when somebody is trying to communicate genuinely essential information to you. I think that people systematically overestimate how frequently this happens, and this is the role of well-designed email filters and the like.)
  7. Thus, every bounced text message/phone call/email is evidence that you are prioritising correctly.

You can tell I’m a riot at parties.