In this blog, Linda Ray turns her attention to the subject of ‘attention’—more specifically on ways to build productivity through ‘Attentional Intelligence’.
ATTENTION IS A LIMITED RESOURCE
Take a moment to consider how your day has gone. Where has your attention been focussed?
Given the average worker spends around 2.5-3 hours per day on distractions, I suspect for many, attention is not always focussed where you want it to be or where it is most productive.
In fact, many of us operate in a state of constant partial attention. With our attention constantly being drawn away by a multitude of enticing distractions.
Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell in an article for Harvard Business Review entitled “Why Smart People Underperform” has suggested this has led to a new neurological phenomenom referred to as Attention Deficit Trait.
This may also explain why we spend a maximum of 12 minutes before we are interrupted by either an internal or external distraction. In many instances—around 41% of the time—we don’t return to the original task. Our capacity to maintain attention in a focussed way is best done in 25-minute blocks, after which we should have a ‘brain break’.
Attention is a limited resource and we need to use it wisely.
THE MYTH OF MULTI-TASKING
Many people are trying to survive in our modern hyperkenetic world by multi-tasking. John Medina, the author of Brain Rules weighs in: “To put it bluntly, research shows that we can’t multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously.”
Since ‘multi-tasking’ is a misnomer, and the brain doesn’t simultaneously process work, but rapidly switches between various activities, we actually become less and less productive the busier we get.
To complicate matters further, we actually may be driven to multitask at the cost of cognitive rewards. In a recent study, researchers from Ohio State University looked at the effects of media multitasking on college age students. The findings showed that emotional and habitual needs were most satisfied by multitasking, even if learning and thinking skills were reduced in the process. ”They are not being more productive—they just feel more emotionally satisfied from their work,” says Wang, an assistant professor involved in the study. This emotional satisfaction may explain why we often feel addicted to being busy.
There is a way out of this quagmire, but it requires a completely different mindset for most people.
BUILDING ATTENTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
For a number of years now, I have been intentionally noticing where my attention is placed rather than attaching my attention to a never ending train of thoughts or distractions from my external environment. I confess that I suffer from ‘bright shiny object syndrome’ and as such my brain is particularly tuned to novelty. In ‘taming’ my mind I have had to put in place some clear practices which have supported my capacity to grow what I have started calling my ‘attentional intelligence’. This is different from emotional intelligence or social intelligence.
It is an intelligence that, when highly developed, allows you to effortlessly but ‘mindfully’ notice where attention is at any moment and to intentionally choose where you want it to be. (Linda Ray)
According to psychologist and philosopher William James, attention “is the taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what may seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thoughts. … It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others”.
Jonah Lehrer, the author of a number of books on neuroscience, suggests that the mind has strict cognitive limitations. We know the part of our brain that houses our executive function tires easily. We also know our brain is programmed for novelty. Selective attention helps in part to compensate for our cognitive limitations.
How can you select where your attention is?
Limiting distractions is a great starting point. As we have already seen distractions can sneak up on you even when you are trying to fully focus your attention.
Psychologists like Rosen support this:
How do we teach focus in a world that is constantly drawing our focus elsewhere? One idea is to use “technology breaks” where you check your phone, the web, whatever, for a minute or two and then turn the phone to silent, the computer screen off and “focus” on work or conversation or any non-technological activity for, say 15 minutes, and then take a 1-2 minute tech break followed by more focus times and more tech breaks. The trick is to gradually lengthen the focus time to teach yourself how to focus for longer periods of time without being distracted.
So, turn off your mobile phone when you want to keep your attention fully focused on a task. When you are in a deep thinking space that phone call reminding you to pick up milk on the way home or your email alert beep can impact on those fragile connections your brain is working hard to make to come up with a great idea or a solution to a tricky issue. It can take around 25 minutes to get back into the zone.
Practice noticing where your attention is placed. Try not to be hard on yourself if you notice your attention jumping around a lot. This is quite normal. Just notice when this happens and without judgement bring your attention back to where you want it to be. Do a check in starting out with attention tracking 3-4 times per day at a set time.
The more you pay attention to paying attention you will notice increased capacity. You’ll find that by training your focus, you tame distractions, enhance productivity, and maybe even calm those around you. Set yourself a goal of building your ‘attentional intelligence’.
