I have been practicing selective ignorance for probably about a month now (consciously). I can honestly say that I have noticed quite a dramatic change in my output. I have become more focused on tasks that I have to complete, and I do not become distracted as easily by other things that are going on.
I read about selective ignorance in Timothy Ferriss’ book, The 4 Hour Work Week. Selective ignorance is not a new concept by any means. However, when I read about it in his book, it opened my eyes as to how many successful people I knew were practicing selective ignorance and I was not aware at all that they were doing this.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxPeRXc4T5A[/youtube]
Some of these people subconsciously practice this selective ignorance, whereas others intentionally know that they are choosing to be selectively ignorant.
Selective ignorance to me means, having a set of outcomes that you want to achieve. When you are being given information that does not help you achieve these set outcomes, you ignore the information. Further, you only pay attention to the critical information that will help you to achieve your desired outcomes.
For example, I am finding that I am watching much less TV now. I have come to realize that watching TV is a distraction to me, and it takes me away from more productive tasks that I could be doing. As I write this blog post, I can think of at least 3 movies that I would like to watch on DVD. They are in no particular order, Slumdog Millionaire, Stark Trek (2009), and Die Hard. I could easily get up from my computer, and go watch one of these movies. I know that this would not be the right decision, as this would take me away from completing my desired outcome. My desired outcome here is to write a valuable blog post. Anything, or any information that takes me away from doing this right now, is a distraction to me, and I will chose not to pay any attention to this distraction. My focus is on completing this blog post.
Further, I have my cell phone sitting next to my computer right now. If my phone rings or if it notifies me that I have a text message, I will ignore answering it, or reading the text message until after I have completed this blog post. The reason for this is because, answering my phone, or looking at my text message, will result in me being distracted from completing my most important task. My most important task at this point is to successfully complete a valuable blog post.
I have also begun to practice selective ignorance by not reading any newspapers or listening to any news talk radio stations. This may seems a little bit strange, however, the truth is that my focus and productivity is increasing. I am only reading materials that directly contribute to the attainment of some of my goals. For instance, all that I am reading now are books related to real estate and personal development. Because I am contributing content to my blog on a daily basis, it makes that most sense for me to continually read materials related to real estate. I am now only focusing on things that will help me achieve my desired goals.
The reason that I have stopped listening to talk radio stations is that, I have no use for the negative news stories that the media reports on. I find this information repetitive and very unproductive for me. It is a waste of my time to listen to it, so I have stopped listening to these types of radio stations all together.
You can practice selective ignorance as well. By doing this, you will be effected in a positive manner.
Here is how practicing selective ignorance can help you:
If you are looking to purchase your first rental property, practicing selective ignorance will be very important for you. You are going to have to ignore, and block out those people who are negative and who will try to discourage you from investing in real estate. We have come to know these people as the ‘unqualified’ people. They will try to give you their opinion as to why investing in real estate may be a bad idea. In order for you to succeed, and to move forward in life, you have to ignore these people. Here is a step-by-step process, as to how to ignore these people. If someone gives you advice on real estate investing, good or bad, first ask yourself, is this person ‘qualified’. In order to determine if they are qualified, ask them if they own any rental properties themselves. If they tell you that they do not own any rental properties, completely ignore everything that they tell you. If it so happens that they do own at least one rental property, take note of what information or advice they are giving you.
If you have chosen a particular geographical area that you want to invest in, you might have to practice selective ignorance here as well. When I first chose one of my cities that I was going to invest in, I knew that I was going to have to block out all of the information that was soon going to be coming to me from other people. Friends and peers who were invested in other towns and cities were contributing this unwanted information. They were telling me why their particular town or city was the best place to invest in, and they were listing all of the reasons why. Again, I had to block out all of this information because, at this point, it was not going to do me any good. I had made up my mind with regards to what city I was going to invest in, and I had come to this decision based upon all of my research and due diligence. I knew that it was a great city to invest in, and I knew that I had to stick to my decision and not change my mind. I knew that if I did end up changing my mind, I would be in a worse position. As such, I chose to practice selective ignorance, I blocked out what everyone else was telling me, and I worked with the assumption that the city I had chosen was the best one. You have to do the same thing here. Once you have completed all of your due diligence on a city or a town, and you know that you are going to be investing there, due to the strong economic fundamentals of the area, you have to stop listening to what everyone else is telling you about other investment towns and cities. If you kept on listening to people and their other suggestions with respect to where to invest, you may never make up your mind.
