Turning the volume down when feeling lost.

I’ve just landed in Montenegro and negotiated the small yet surprisingly confusing airport to find myself at the car rental desk. I hurdle a few communication barriers and am finally behind the wheel of my trusted steed. It will need to see me safely across what I am told are ‘interesting’ roads in this unfamiliar country.

Firstly, I’m aware that the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car. The wrong side. My observation skills are off to a strong start.

Next, I fumble with the lights, trying to figure out if they’re on dim or full beam. I make a guess and hope I’ve chosen wisely.

I load up my maps app and instil blind faith that it’ll work correctly when I move out of reach of the airport’s free Wi-Fi.

All the while, a random radio station is playing an 80s song just a little too loud for my liking, but I can’t find the volume button on the central console. I’ll deal with that later because right now I’m aware of a stranger’s presence behind me.

A relative stranger, at least. He’s the employee who has just scrutinised every inch of the vehicle, making numerous marks on a page to represent a baseline of the car’s condition. He wants me to bloody well get on with it so he can move on to the next customer. But he also knows that a little bump now means he can add a mark to my page, and a line item to my bill.

How I feel climbing into a rental car.

There’s a fair bit going on. I bang the car into what I hope is reverse and feel it start to inch backwards. And suddenly I become aware of a change. The volume of the radio has immediately dropped to the level of a background murmur.

What major car manufacturers realise and have built into their systems is this:

Our brains have a limit: we can only process so much information at once.

In that moment of relative quiet, with the radio turned down, it felt like someone had removed a stone that had been placed on my brain and was gradually compressing it.

Ever since I had landed in this new environment, little bits of extra information had been piling up. The moment I slid behind the wheel, their presence ramped up more significantly. That feeling of a weight on my brain was in fact the impending sense of my thoughts being overwhelmed with information. But I wasn’t consciously aware of it. I needed the car to remind me that, like everyone, there’s a limit to what I can process.

Our brains are good at handling one task. Hell, throw two at it and it’ll divide and conquer. But beyond that, things start to get a little less clear. It becomes necessary to split our attention in order to try to focus. At this point the brain begins to perform less effectively. We’re more likely to make errors.

For any isolated task, our brain would be able to figure it out.

Finding the lights. Getting used to the steering wheel being on the wrong side.

Reversing without hitting other cars, or rental staff.

But being bombarded by all of this at once forces our brain to keep ‘switching’ across tasks, trying to work out which it feels is most important.

Maybe it’ll select correctly and allow me to get away with reversing smoothly, or maybe it’ll switch to wanting to jam along to that catchy 80s tune just as I’m negotiating my critical turn. It’s bombarded with choice.

When the radio’s volume is turned down, it enables me to more consciously choose what is important. It limits the distractions being thrown at me. It slows things down to a more manageable level. It makes it more likely that I can focus on the visual task of navigating the obstacles around me successfully.

And avoid a rental damages claim before I’ve even hit the highway.

Where does the ‘noise’ come from in your life?

Car manufacturers are some of the world’s most established companies. And they purposefully design their cars to limit distractions in my life, for my benefit. They recognise my own limits.

Do I?

Our world is increasingly filled with distractions vying for our attention. And now, more than ever, I need to choose carefully what I invest that attention in.

When do you need to turn the volume down in your life?

Maybe my goal for today is to write a blog post. Perhaps I need to review my monthly expenses as economic times get tight. Or I feel the need to secure 30 minutes for myself away from the stresses of my routine. What’s getting in the way of focusing on what you want to achieve today?

The volume of today’s distractions are powerful. They are better than ever at stopping me from seeing my goal, let alone focusing on it. My phone’s notifications are a distraction. Social media companies designing their algorithms to take advantage of my natural impulses to constantly monitor their feeds are a distraction. The ‘Breaking News’ ticker is a distraction. Golf videos on YouTube are a distraction.

I might trick myself into thinking I can multi-task. That I can edit an article at the same time as listening to a podcast. Until I read the typos that remain after I press ‘publish’.

We all have our limits. The moment we think we don’t, is the day we risk being able to see what’s important.

Taken on their own, any one of life’s distractions isn’t necessarily a bad or evil thing. I can probably conquer them individually. But when they mount up, when I don’t consciously pay attention to their collective weight, I lose the ability to see their impact. And the opportunity to choose the most important one to focus on.

There’s no company that has yet managed to turn down the volume of life for me. It is my responsibility to manage the levels. But I need prompting, because it isn’t always easy. Everything can mount up so quickly, without me even noticing.

So when I see a car radio, it reminds me:

I have the power to choose when to turn the volume down.

Maybe that means:

• Putting my phone in another room while I write an important email, or read, or sleep

• Setting specific social media timeslots, or removing the apps from my phone altogether so I have to check them on a computer

• Knowing when to take a break from news’ cycles

• Recognising that watching one 20 minute golf video is a pleasant distraction, getting lost in the rabbit hole is removing any chance of focusing on something important

• Learning about and implementing productivity methods, like the Pomodoro Technique

Focusing is hard, perhaps harder than ever.

So I can always do with a reminder to keep an eye out for the volume button.