In my last post, I began a series of articles to discuss the importance of learning how to manage the flow of attention during your workday.
In that post, I made the following bold statement:
“The state of attention is…so important to productivity that learning how to control the ‘flow’ of attention might just be the most crucial aspect of your fledgling business’s success. I believe I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that attention management is the most important aspect of time management.”
Yeah, that was bold, but I stand by it.
That’s because I’ve lived the life of an independent educational consultant for 18 years, and I know that the biggest challenge isn’t writing that book you need to write, it’s not that difficult client you have to work with, and it’s not finding your next client.
No, the biggest challenge is YOU. Keeping yourself focused, keeping yourself dialed in, keeping yourself productive when it seems the entire world is intent on distracting you from achieving your goals.
In my last blog post, I introduced you to the human brain’s three attentional systems:
- Arousal,
- Stimulus-driven attention, and
- focused attention.
In that previous post, I talked about arousal, our non-selective baseline level of attention—basically, how awake and alert we are at any given moment—and what we need to do to keep ourselves in the “sweet spot” of medium arousal during our work days.
Today, we take a look at the “holy grail” of the attentional systems: focused attention.
Attention, Take Two: Focused Attention
What is focused attention? Just what it sounds like—focusing one’s attention on one single aspect of one’s environment to the exclusion of all other aspects of the environment.
The key understanding is that there’s both a “selection” component (focusing on this) and an “exclusion component” (while tuning out everything else) to focused attention.
We’re all familiar with the struggle to get students to pay attention in a classroom setting, so let me give you a classroom example to demonstrate this dual component aspect of focused attention.
What does a teacher mean when she tells students to “pay attention”? What we mean when we say this is that we want them to focus their attention on a particular academic task to the exclusion of anything else.
A teacher might want students to listen to her as she delivers a chunk of lecture. She might want them to focus on a text they’re reading or some math problems they’re working. She might want them to actively listen to others in their groups and contribute their own ideas to the discussion. All of these tasks require that they keep the goal or goals of the task in mind (selection) and not allow their minds to wander off to other things (exclusion).
Why do teachers spend so much time and energy trying to keep students “on task”? Because we have to focus our attention on something before we can learn it. So, obviously, if attention is so important to learning, one of the most important things a teacher can learn to do is to direct the “flow” of her students’ attention during a lesson.
This is a long-winded way of saying that attention is an essential first step to learning. No, attention doesn’t guarantee learning—you still have to process the material in working memory for the learning to stick—but it at least gives you the opportunity to learn.
All master teachers I’ve ever seen know this intuitively, and they’ve developed over the years a whole grab bag of engagement tools that they can either build into their lesson plans up front or pull out at a moment’s notice if attention is flagging. They know that keeping students engaged means keeping students’ attention focused on the content of the lesson.
But what does this look like for you during your workday? There are obvious differences between students working in a classroom setting and a consultant working at home in her office, but there are also key similarities.
The two major components of focused attention are still in play in your workplace: there is a selection component (what you’re choosing to focus on) and an exclusion component (everything else in your office environment that could serve as distractions). And just like those students who won’t learn much if they allow the distractions to win out over focused attention, a consultant won’t get much quality productive work done if she allows herself to be distracted from her work goals.
Focused Attention is Hard
Let me ask you a question: “How long can you effectively pay attention?” Your answer will probably be, “It depends. What am I trying to pay attention to?” And that, of course, is the right answer. Some things we can pay attention to for longer stretches of time, and some things are much harder to continually attend to.
For example, if you’re engaged in a hobby or other activity that you really enjoy doing, you can probably pay attention for long stretches of time—hours even—without needing a break.
If, however, you’re sitting in a training and the presenter is droning on non-stop, you’re probably going to have a lot harder time paying attention. Not that it’s impossible. You can pay attention longer if you’re interested in the topic, if the presenter varies his voice, if he uses interesting visuals in the presentation, etc. But at some point, your attention is going to fade, no matter how good the presenter is.
The truth is, focused attention is hard. The human brain is simply not very good at sustaining focused attention for long stretches of time. In fact, as we’ll see in my next blog post in this series, we’re actually much better at shifting attention than we are at maintaining it.
The estimates I’ve seen on the ability of the human brain to maintain focused attention indicate that the average adult can pay good attention in challenging situations like the boring presentation described above for no more than ten to twelve minutes at a stretch. Of course, it’s not like you completely lose focus at that point, but you’re likely to “tune out” for a while, daydream a little, etc., and then, mentally refreshed, you’re able to once again focus on the presenter.
But what about when you’re working by yourself in your home office? In some ways, the task is easier and in some ways it’s more difficult.
It can be easier to maintain focus if you’re working on something that you’re highly interested in. If you’re reading in your area of expertise or writing a blog post on a topic you’re interested in, or writing a book about your current passion, you’re likely to be able to sustain attention for longer stretches.
But if you’re doing some of those things you need to do but don’t really enjoy doing—filing, invoicing, scheduling travel plans, doing taxes, etc.—you’re probably going to have a much harder time maintaining focus. And the fact that there’s no one else around to tell you to keep your nose to the grindstone makes it harder, too.
Scamming the (Focused Attention) System
So, what do you do when you need to get some work done—and especially if you need to knock out some of those less than pleasant tasks? People have come up with lots of ingenious approaches to maximizing focused attention in challenging situations, but today I’ll just share with you my “Big Three”:
1. Break Up the Time: Since we know that the human brain isn’t good at sustaining focused attention in challenging situations, one way to deal with the situation is to incorporate regular breaks so that you’re not forcing yourself to push past your attentional limits.
Some people think they can just marshal their will power and push on through when their attention is flagging, but that’s a low-yield strategy. When you try to do this, you usually just end up sitting there, thinking, “Concentrate. You can do this!” That state of mind isn’t conducive to quality work.
The most famous method for breaking up your work time is called the “Pomodoro Method,” but since I plan on going into this strategy in depth in a few weeks, I won’t get into it right now.
For now, if you decide to try your hand at breaking up your work time, just set a time limit—15 minutes, 30 minutes, however long you think you can sustain good concentration—and set a timer or alarm. When the timer goes off, take a short break and get away from your desk. When you return, your attentional clock should be reset and you should be able to focus again for another stretch. Play around with the length of your work stretches until you find your “sweet spot.”
2. Reward Yourself: If you need to work through some less than pleasant tasks, one way to motivate yourself to buckle down and get it done is to offer yourself a reward once the task is complete. It doesn’t have to be anything big. It could be something as small as going outside and playing with the dog for 15 minutes, or grabbing a tasty snack, or giving yourself permission to spend 15 minutes on social media, connecting with friends.
If the unpleasant task is a larger one—like reorganizing your office or doing your books and getting them turned in to your accountant—make the reward you offer yourself larger, as well, something you’ll really look forward to. Getting your books done and turned over to your accountant is probably worth treating yourself to lunch out, if not an entire day off!
3. Outsource the Unpleasant Stuff: A third, bigger-picture option for being more focused more often is one most consultants never even think of: outsourcing.
Let’s say that you enjoy traveling to do presentations, but you hate booking flights, hotels, etc. Outsource this chore to a travel agent.
Or perhaps you feel like trying to stay connected with others in your field through social media is a major time suck. Outsource this task to a social media manager.
Or perhaps you love creating new products and materials and doing presentations, but you hate promoting yourself, even though you know doing so would lead to more paying gigs. Outsource this work to a publicist.
Sure, you’ll have to pay these people to do these tasks for you, but doing so offers you three major advantages:
- The people you outsource these tasks to are specialists, which means that they will probably do the outsourced tasks much better than you could ever have done them yourself;
- By cutting out the tasks you don’t want to deal with (or the ones you’re just not very good at), you get to spend most of your time on the tasks you’re more passionate about and better at, which will make you a much happier camper; and
- Since you’ll be spending most of your time on more pleasurable tasks, you’ll be able to maintain longer stretches of focused attention on them, meaning you’ll get a lot more done.
There’s no doubt that staying focused is a challenge, but by understanding the limitations of our focused attention system, you can use tactics like the ones listed above to make yourself much more productive.
In the next post in this series, I’ll tackle the third attentional system—the stimulus-driven attention system—and explain the constant tug-of-war between this system and the focused system. Until then, please leave a comment below and let me hear about your attentional challenges and the ways you’ve found to conquer them.
