Episode 045 – The Law of Distraction

What’s up, everyone? Welcome. It’s episode 45, and it begins with a disclaimer. Never drink gasoline. Ever.

Why such nonsense? Well, a group of scientists, obviously, in a magical place where scientists aren’t struggling for research dollars, calculated that 1 gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 calories. By comparison, a pack of 2 Twinkies contains 280 calories, and a single avocado can have as many as 322 calories. That can’t be right. This experiment came about when these scientists compared the efficiency of a car to that of a human pedaling a bicycle. By calculating how many calories it takes to cycle one mile at 15 miles per hour, they figured out that a person could bike approximately 912 miles on a gallon of gas. 31,000

calories. Honey, does this gasoline make my ass look big? Oh, no, baby. Your ass makes your ass look big. Here’s something else. Dogs aren’t colorblind and croissants aren’t French. They originated in Vienna. and strawberries, well, they’re not berries at all. You see, in order to be classified as a berry, it must first meet a very specific scientific berry criteria. Try that three times. A berry must have 3 layers, a protective outer layer or skin, a fleshy inner layer that contains the seeds, and those seeds have to number 2 or more and come from a flower with a single ovary. Blueberries, cranberries, They’re berries. Bananas, kiwis, watermelons, peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants are also berries. Strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries, those sneaky raspberries with the silent ‘p’. Well, they’re not berries at all. Shouldn’t be surprising.

And in other news, that large hole in the bottom of your spaghetti spoon, you know that thing with the big tines

It’s not there to let water drain out. It’s a measuring device. The amount of pasta that you can shove in that hole equates to a single serving. How about that?

Did you know coffee is the single most traded commodity in the world right behind oil. And lastly, of the 7,800,000,000 people in the world, 4,500,000,000

of them do not have a toilet. That’s not the scary part. Here’s the scary part. With the numbers totaling 7,300,000,000 cell phone users on the planet, that means more people have cell phones than toilets. Maybe that’s why so many people are talking shit these days. Hello. All those seemingly useless facts. You know why I know them? Because I got distracted. That happens a lot when I work on the show.

A lot of junk going on upstairs. And today is the day I dump it all out on the microphone. So let’s talk about distraction and let’s talk about clutter, the mental kind. Obviously, in play here in episode 45. Why? Well, Just outside the walls of the Mind Unset’s Polish studio, some builders are putting a new roof on the compound next door. due to the termites and the fact that wood is extremely hard to come by almost nothing here in Baja’s built with wood. Everything is steel and concrete. Now I don’t know if you’re particularly familiar with the sound of grinders on a steel beam, but I’ll save you some time and tell you it’s not a pleasant sound. nor as a conducive to clean recording. So when the grinder starts, I have to stop recording. That means I have time. to make another French press a coffee, which I don’t need, I might add, proofread, rewrite, and then surf the web. And for today’s episode, I thought extraordinary facts about mundane things would be an interesting way to highlight my personal battle with distraction. Moreover, I could then highlight just what happens to the workflow when we, you and me, are distracted or surrounded by clutter.

because clutter isn’t just the stuff in your garage or under your bathroom sink, which you should really address, by the way. I’m talking about the mental clutter. And I’d venture to say there are literally hundreds of books written on the topic of clutter. Not gonna Google it. Hell, I’ve written 1 myself. Shameless plug 4 downsizing for Tiny Life. What? Available on Amazon shut the front door. Anyway, for over a century, great minds have been trying to figure out why we’re so attached to our stuff. And more recently,

how digital clutter and distraction affect the brain. Psychologists have come up with catchy buzz phrases like the endowment effect, and there are countless statistics But in the last 2 decades, the digital clutter stuff has really become more dangerous than the physical stuff. I mean, when I wrote downsizing for Tiny Life in 2020, email clutter and social media distraction was still a thing, but nothing like it is now. And so today I wanted to focus on the digital clutter that’s up in your noggin. Not to say I have all the answers or any of them for that matter. I’m just saying there are ways to manage your mental clutter, and it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it, as in learn about toilets, and expose the lies of the croissant, right?

So in episode 43 I talked about small victories, and how important it is to recognize them, to celebrate them. And in episode 44 I talked about creating a routine and breaking it, and doing a little improv, and it is from that jumping off point that I write and record this week’s episode. I can’t record in the studio because the noise next door would cause an insane amount of anxiety, and I can’t do it from the house because there’s a lot of noise here too. So I’m coming to you from the backseat of my 2007 Honda Element.

Was there any bit of usable information in this episode? I’ll let you be the judge. I do hope you’ve enjoyed it. If you have, please subscribe and Apple Podcast or whatever platform you use to listen to your podcasts.

Please share it with your friends because the show doesn’t go anywhere without you. And if you’d like to join the email list or find out how to support the show, you can do both at themindunset.com.

I’ll be back next week. Hope you will too. And until then, be nice. Good stuff.