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How To Reclaim Focus & Energy in the Age of Notifications and Noise.

  • rozemarijn.de.neve
  • Oct 17
  • 2 min read
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By Philippe Tjantele, Founder, The Optimized Professional


Tech Is Not the Problem. Your Relationship with It Is. Today the average person has more computing power in their pocket than NASA had during the moon landing.But as always, with great power comes great responsibility.

For many, this power has turned into a trap, making them feel more distracted, more overwhelmed, and more behind than ever.

Personally, I’m not judging. I often catch myself getting pulled under by the endless scroll… like being caught in a rip current of notifications, recommendations, and algorithms that are designed to keep me there.

From being diagnosed with ADD as a kid to founding The Optimized Professional, where we help high-performing executives, founders, and ambitious professionals unlock their full potential, I’ve learned a few powerful techniques to use this double-edged sword of technology.

The Double-Edged Sword

Technology isn’t good or bad, it’s a tool. One that can either steal your focus or supercharge your performance.

As an example I used to blame my phone for killing my concentration.The truth? I hadn’t set rules. Once I did, everything changed.

How Tech Hijacks Your Brain:

  1. Distractions & OverloadEvery ping resets your brain. With the average person checking their phone 100+ times a day, that’s not focus—it’s fragmentation.

  2. Dopamine HijackScrolling trains your brain to crave novelty. Real work starts to feel boring. By 2 p.m., you’ve switched tasks a hundred times but achieved nothing meaningful.

  3. The AI TrapThe danger isn’t just distraction—it’s outsourcing thinking. Studies show fully delegating to AI hurts problem-solving and creativity.The best results? When AI supplements your thinking, not replaces it.

Your brain must stay in the driver’s seat.

How Tech Can Supercharge Your Performance

Here’s the good news: with the right systems, tech becomes an accelerator—not a liability.

  1. Free Mental BandwidthHigh performers use technology to automate scheduling, emails, workouts, meal prep, and other admin. Every minute saved on busywork is a minute gained for solving high leverage problems.

  2. Deep Work ToolsBy using time-blocking apps like Sunsama or Cal Newport’s Planner, ultradian-based focus timers, and tools that block blue light or silence notifications, you create a structure that supports deep, sustained concentration that keeps you in flow.

  3. Precision TrackingDevices like WHOOP allow you to track HRV, sleep, strain, and stress, giving you data to spot patterns. With this level of feedback, you stop guessing and start optimizing.

The Opportunity To Optimize

Due to tech now for the first time, we can actually map and measure the invisible drivers of focus, energy, and recovery. This allows us to identify and align deep work with natural peaks, fine-tune routines around stress and recovery, and turn performance into something measurable and improvable.In collaboration with FinanceX I’ve created a custom program to get you started in your optimization journey.

When you fill in the survey below I will send you your Personal Performance Plan.


Feel free to have a look on our website to learn more about our scienced backed and measurable optimization protocols www.theoptimizedprofessional.com


 
 
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