Where we direct our attention has incredible ramifications. Our ability to manage that resource and to manage the attention of our clients, to capture and keep their attention, will shape the trajectory of our careers and our ability to gain more clients and provide more value.

Our reaction to rising competition, growing complexity, and rapid change and uncertainty naturally facilitates the very behaviors and patterns that exacerbate and create constant distraction. We create cultures that reward distraction. We replace our primary responsibilities with being responsive.

We have seen a reorienting of where work takes place and where life takes place, and an upending of what had previously taken decades to change has happened in a matter of weeks. In moments of uncertainty, it can be really challenging to find focus.

How do we do it? Here is the central, foundational element of how we better manage attention. “Focus” means clarity on what deserves attention. When things are out of focus, we don’t like to pay attention to them. It gets complicated. What we desperately need is clarity on what deserves attention.

Distraction is confusion about what deserves attention. It is confusion about what matters.

How often do we think, Help me get the attention of my clients. They won’t open my emails. They won’t follow up with me. I think we need puppies. That’s where we go, but that’s not what will create sustainable attention. What creates sustainable attention is clarity on what deserves it.

I have three areas that are the foundation for being able to assess, define and put our attention on what deserves attention.

No. 1 is simple: Do we value attention? There is nothing more valuable than what you choose to pay attention to. In a world of so much information, there is lots you can learn. We naturally think that it is the lack of information that is keeping clarity from occurring. But, in fact, it is the devaluing of our attention. Your attention is what will shape what you give more attention to. The reason: what you give your attention to is what you value.

And, ultimately, where we give our attention, our pocketbook follows. This is why we live in an attention economy. The hidden layer of our economy is that a large segment of companies will give free stuff away in order to capture customers’ attention. Next year, $375 billion will be spent on advertising, and you are going to experience somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 advertisements today. They know your attention is valuable.

The reason that your attention is so valuable is because what you don’t pay attention to doesn’t exist. I am going to show you an example. I am bringing you over to my office closet. This is where all the stuff goes that I don’t want to pay attention to. I have a basketball. I have no idea why this is here. But, in a lot of ways, this is exactly how attention works. I think, Why does this space look like such a disaster? The reason is simple. If I can close the door, it doesn’t exist to me. That’s how attention works. The areas that we see, we fix. We pay attention to them. But if they don’t get within our line of sight, they disappear.

When we do not give our attention to something, entropy occurs. When we give our attention to something, we become more fascinated by it. Whatever we give consistent attention to grows in importance and shapes us in more and more ways. Your attention is valuable. It is something you can control.

Think about this from your customers’ standpoint. Do you value their attention? Clients won’t give their attention to you if they don’t believe that you value it the way they do. If we know that someone deeply values our attention, we will give them more of it because we know they are going to use it well.

No. 2 is, what matters most? This is a really unfair and unreasonable question, isn’t it? Everything matters. One of the challenges today is there are lots of agendas trying to tell you what matters.

The best way to focus and define what matters is to get out of the noise. We have to know what matters most in order to focus well. And, even more, do we take the space to know what matters most for our clients? It is incredible how much rare value you can have when you actually know what matters most to them.

No. 3 is clarity about what deserves attention at a specific space in a specific time. What’s the difference between focused attention ― attention being used well ― and being distracted? When and where you are. If I’m at dinner with my spouse, but my attention is on work, then I’m distracted. If I’m in the middle of a client meeting, but I’m on my phone, I’m distracted. But if I’m at home watching a game, that’s not distraction. Distraction is about space and time. While technology isn’t the cause of distraction, what technology does is distort our relationship with the places we occupy in the time that we exist in. It distorts our relationship with space and time.

Technology brings everything to us. It does not matter where you are. You can be at a family event, and you are working. You can be at work and not be working. Space is one of the most powerful tools for helping to assign and define what deserves attention.

What we see, the space that we occupy, shapes what gets our attention. The key here is using the space to support what deserves attention. The question is, What is your space telling you about what deserves attention? What are you hearing? What do you see when you open your eyes? If we make small decisions to improve what we see in the space we occupy, then we will be able to focus on what deserves more attention and what doe not.

I have all sorts of strategies. I have headphones that are noise canceling. I close my door. I put my phone inside my desk rather than on my desk. Let your space work for you rather than against you.

Often why your clients won’t give you their attention is not because what you have to say doesn’t matter. It is because it doesn’t matter as much now as other things. Where this gets particularly confusing is when one thing collides into another, and what happened before is still colliding into now. We get home saying we are done with work, but all we can do is think about work.

There is a really simple, practical way to change this: Divide your time, not your attention. When I end work every day, I take three minutes to view everything. I say, “Is there anything that needs my attention now?”

No one benefits from your partial attention. Our full attention given is the measure of what we value. When we scatter it too broadly, everyone suffers.

How do you capture more clients? When I was working with a very large financial services organization in Canada, I asked its No. 1 financial advisor, “What’s your distinctive advantage? What do you do?” He said, “Kurt, I give my customers my full attention. When I’m with them, nothing else is there. There is no other thing I do other than be fully present with them because there is no more precious and rare gift that you can give someone than that undevoted attention, but that requires knowing what matters most.”

In a world where you have so much coming at you, we are taught fast is the key. In fact, the key is attention and devoting it solely in the most important places. You can help provide clarity for all those you work with on what really deserves attention.

Curt Steinhorst is the bestselling author of “Can I Have Your Attention? Inspiring Better Work Habits, Focusing Your Team, and Getting Stuff Done in the Constantly Connected Workplace” and a regular Forbes contributor on leadership strategy. After years studying the impact of tech on behavior, Steinhorst founded Focuswise, a consultancy that equips organizations to overcome the distinct challenges of the constantly connected workplace. He has coached executives, TV personalities and well-known professional athletes on how to effectively communicate and create focus when they speak to audiences, lead their employees and engage their customers.