Things that don’t matter are stealing your attention, your potential and your life; every day. And you’re letting it happen.
I hope that got your attention.
I’m Jamie. And I’ve become more interested in focus and attention recently, because, and maybe this feels real for you too, I know if I can focus, I’ll be better; a better parent, friend, colleague, a better person. And I also know that the sad truth is I am currently too distracted in my life to be the best version of myself. And I’m not happy about it.
See if this sounds familiar.
I am a good parent. When I’m with my daughter it’s probably the least distracted version of myself I can be…and yet still, I’m not 100% there with her. Every so often I feel my mind and my hand move, almost inexplicably as if controlled by a higher intelligence, towards my phone to check for a message. It’s automatic, it doesn’t feel like me.
My daughter (much to her mother’s annoyance) is becoming a mini version of me. But I want her to see the very best version of me, not the parts I feel a bit ashamed or disappointed in myself about. She’s bright (as I said, a mini version of me😊), so she’ll notice and store away my distractedness as accepted and normal behaviour. And I don’t believe it should be. I want to be with her, mind and body, whenever we’re together. Because that is what gives me value and meaning; and it’s what she deserves.
We pause here to re-focus
How many times have you been distracted whilst reading this short little passage so far. Be honest with yourself. A quick phone glance? An email pop up? Maybe your mind just started to wander somewhere, anywhere else. Maybe you’re just scan reading as you rush to get this task done. My belief (and maybe a bit of hope) is that whatever the reason, it’s not down to my terrible blog writing skills; it’s actually down to the issue of focus and attention.
Let’s continue.
So why does the issue exist. I’ve been reading and listening to a lot in this area recently and there are a few things worth mentioning.
One issue is your brain. Now I’m not getting personal about your specific brain; it’s about humans generally. Our brains are hard-wired to look for distraction. Nir Ayal, author of Indistractable, explained on this Diary of a CEO podcast (don’t click it yet, focus!), how our brains are always seeking to avoid / run away from discomfort. Makes sense right. Back in caveman days if something was scary or potentially painful it made sense to flee it. Well, we don’t live in caves anymore (and that’s even true for me living in the North of England!). However we’re still trying to escape discomforts, we’ve just changed what they are.
Try this one for size.
You have a big project due or an important task that needs sorting and there is a deadline. You tell yourself you’ll get on it right away…right after I just tidy up my desk a bit first though yeah? After all, tidy desk tidy mind! Ok, I’m ready now. But maybe…I’ll just check my emails because I wouldn’t want to miss anything urgent. OK, well that took 40 minutes longer than I expected. However answering that email about where we should get the buffet from at the next team meeting was necessary. Right, here we go, except…that desk tidy and email reply session has left me thirsty. I’ll just go and make myself a brew, back in a minute. Oh crap! 2 hours has passed and I’m in a meeting now for the rest of the day. Oh well, I’ll crack on with that important deadline task tomorrow for sure.
We prioritise everything else to avoid the discomfort of having to do things that may challenge us; whether that’s a task that may be intellectually demanding or something we’ve not done before where our confidence is lower than usual. The discomfort comes from not knowing if we can or will do it well and from being afraid to get started.
Getting in the zone
According to a variety of research, it takes between 15 and 20 of minutes of uninterrupted focus to get into a flow state (sometimes called being in the zone). A flow state is where we’re at peak performance when engaged in an activity; things seem clear, we’re engaged, enjoying the work and feeling deep satisfaction.
Ask yourself when you last truly felt like that.
What’s more, each time you’re distracted, it takes 20 minutes to get back into that state. It’s no wonder with the 47 possible distractions every hour, that we struggle to get into the flow and truly achieve our potential.
Multi-tasking?
Here is another bombshell for you… multi-tasking is a myth. It’s not humanly possible to spend conscious attention on more than 1 thing at once (check the research). What you’re actually doing when you think you’re multi-tasking is attention switching. Attention switching is shown to be less effective, leads to more mistakes and even increases stress. It’s true we can perform automatic behaviours whilst spending conscious attention on 1 thing (for example a hands-free conversation when driving). But we cannot focus on more than 1 thing that requires conscious attention. “Yes I can Jamie, I don’t care what research and evidence show…I must be different!” You can’t and you’re not. You’re just switching between 1 thing and another and doing both less well than you could.”
And not to scare you, but…
There is also the fact that whilst technology is amazing for us in so many ways, it also has the potential to turn us into unfocussed, attentionless zombies. In a lot of cases, the tech is designed to do just that. If you ever wanted to scare yourself, go do some research on the ways in which Google, Facebook, Tik Tok etc use the most powerful algorithms the world has ever seen, designed by the most advanced data scientists on the planet, to design features and functions to specifically hook into your brain and demand all your attention. Aza Raskin, the person who designed infinite scrolling and has since gone on to express his deep sorrow and guilt over it, is quoted in this article likening the design of social media to “Behavioural Cocaine”.
That move of your mind and your hand towards your phone I mentioned earlier is an outcome of this. It’s automatic behaviour; you don’t think, you just do. And it’s scary and it’s been programmed into us in a relatively short timeframe.
What’s to be done?
You have to take ownership and responsibility for your focus and attention and introduce changes.
Start by recognising and accepting your own innate desire to avoid discomfort and notice the things in your life that are most likely to distract you (in a non-value adding way).
Big piece of work planned tomorrow? What can you do today to set it up? Clean desk now. Put protected time in your calendar. Tell your team you can’t be disturbed for a set amount of time and book a quiet space somewhere else.
Maybe as an experiment, start with 1 hour of flow state focus. Use the bathroom first, have some water to hand, don’t open e-mails on your laptop, leave your phone in another room, set a timer for 1 hour and don’t stop until it goes off. You’ll be amazed and what you can produce in that time and how good you’ll feel after that hour.
If you feel that your phone use is a key factor in your inability to focus and it’s not adding value to your life, there are lots of things you can do. Turn off notifications on all your apps. Remove your most likely distracting apps from your home screen and put in folders, so you’ve got to make a conscious decision to open them. Leave your devices elsewhere, charging in another room. Wear a watch (and not one that gives you your messages and emails) so that to find out what time it is, you don’t have to pick up your phone. Because once you have, you’re automatic behaviour will take over and you’ll be down the rabbit hole again.
Time and attention are precious and diminishing resources. And everyone and everything around you wants yours. Humans have a limited amount of cognitive resource and attention capacity and so ask yourself where you are spending your time and attention right now. Is it adding value to your life and providing satisfaction? If you’re not happy with the answer, it’s down to you to start to make the changes that make it easier to fill your days with the things that do give you value and satisfaction.
None of us will sit on our deathbed and think ‘I should have spent more time on Tik Tok’, or ‘I didn’t do enough desk tidying’. We’ll think about the times in our lives when we gained a real sense of pride and satisfaction in something we accomplished that we doubted we could do. Or we’ll think about the relationships we developed and the love we felt for our children, our families, our colleagues and our friends.
Paying attention to yourself and others is a gift. If you can do this in a world where things are set up against you, you’ll stand out.
Take back control of your life. Be a better friend, a better parent, a better colleague and a better person. It’s an ambition that feels worthy of your focus and attention.
Further reading you may be interested in:
- Indistractable – Nir Eyal – techniques to help avoid the pitfall of distraction in our daily lives
- Atomic Habits – James Clear – whilst not specifically about focus, great advice about how to start and maintain good habits and how to stop habits that don’t add value to our lives
- Stolen Focus – Johann Hari – explains 12 reasons why focus has been dwindling for decades and suggests it can’t be solved by individuals but needs a societal response
