I have found it somewhat useful to write all the things I want to do somewhere that I trust, and select a few of them to work on right now that I am either most interested in, or feel will give me the greatest benefit in the future. I give myself permission to shuffle those projects as necessary, by try to limit them to just a couple at a time so they don't become unmanageable.

I have huge lists of ideas for projects (everything from designing my own index cards, to a ridiculous idea for demonstrating the curvature of the earth), lists of books that I want to read, lists of lists of books that I might find interesting, lists of music to listen to, and smaller lists of things like places to go, things to see, and skills to learn.

By keeping track of the things outside my head, it seems to declutter my everyday thoughts and I can focus on doing meaningful work on the few things I choose to work on right now. Obviously projects and reading are two things that are important to me, so I try to do a bit of each every day when possible. It doesn't always work, but it works better than when I had no such system.

I don't think that's the reason. It may be the internet itself and our low-attention-span-culture.

I highly recommend you check out "The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains", by Nicholas Carr [0].

[0] - https://www.amazon.ca/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp...

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edit: grammar

Me too. Thank god I’m retired.