Of course you are. Your attention is always somewhere, it just might not be here. A more relevant question therefore, would be, where is your attention? Knowing the answer to this is key to effectively managing your attention. Once you know where it is, you can then redirect it to where you want it to be. Over the next couple of pages, we will expose the main challenges facing your attention and what you can do about them.
Before going any further however, there are a number of things I’d like you to consider. In fact, you can use these prompts prior to engaging in any focused work:
1. Right now, how would you rate your level of energy? 1 – 10 (with 10 being high).
Focus is impossible without energy. Therefore, if you answered less than 7, take a quick break before continuing (screen time doesn’t count as a break).
2. Realistically how much of your attention can you give this now?
If there are other more important things you need or want to do, that’s ok. Go and attend to them and come back to this when you can, it’s not going anywhere.
3. What is your reason for reading this?
Your attention is bias towards your goals. Therefore, knowing why you’re doing something and reminding yourself about this helps with motivation and engagement.
4. What in your current environment is likely to capture your attention?
Remove or reduce potential distractions before you carry on reading. If distractions aren’t supressed almost immediately, they interfere with your ability to process relevant information, this negatively impacts on both working and long-term memory performance.
Welcome back. Now you’re ready.
Be in no doubt of the power your attention wields. It impacts on everything you do: what you perceive, learn, remember, decisions you make, your behaviour and actions, your thoughts, emotions, performance. If you want to have control over your life, then you have no choice but to prioritise your attention.
Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.
Jose Ortega y Gassett
During every moment of your life, you are receiving tons of sensory data. To make sense of all this information your brain needs a system, and that system is attention. At any given moment your attention is highlighting information that is important and ignoring that which is irrelevant. It selects what to focus on or ignore based on goals, familiarity and saliency. For example, if I´m hiking and have a painful blister on my toe, my attention highlights this so that I can do something to relieve it. However, if I sudden hear a strange sound behind me and when I turn around I see a cow running towards me, my attention will now prioritise information that gets me to safety. Once safe I will probably feel the pain again. Now at no point did the pain stop, what happened was my attention classed this as irrelevant and highlight what would get me out of the field.
Your attention helps you to focus, notice, plan and manage. When you focus your attention, it is narrow and selective. When your attention is noticing it is broad and receptive. The planning and managing role of your attention oversees all incoming information, it organises and prioritises it so that you can respond appropriately.
However, your attention is also fragile. It gets depleted. When this happens you´re ability to focus is reduced, you get easily distracted, you´re more likely to experience higher boredom and anxiety levels and to commit more errors, etc. Ultimately, it becomes harder to put your attention where you want it to be, you have less control on what gets your attention. According to Dr Amishi P Jha’s research, the three main factors that contribute to its depletion are stress, threats (real or perceived), and low mood.
There are several things you can do to help protect and direct your attention. I have selected four for you to experiment with. These four come up time and time again across the different pieces of literature I have read and listened to on this subject, plus they are simple to implement.
- Take breaks more often than you think and mark your transitional moments.
The right type of break recharges attention, boosts mood, and elevates stress. These are breaks that don’t give your brain any new information to process which means no to screen time. If you want to do anything, then daydream*: it has been shown to be highly effective for attention, mood and stress.
Put in a “break” (2 minutes or less) when you are transitioning from one activity to another. Your brain needs time to disengage from the previous task before it can fully engage in the next one. Simply verbalising the transition, e.g., “I’ve finished X and I’m starting Y”.
(*Daydreaming is different from mind wandering. Mind wandering is when you want or need to do something, but your mind is elsewhere, e.g., instead of writing a report you’re thinking about your holiday). This drains your attention.
- Make pre-decisions
Set up your environment to limit potential distractions. Once attention gets captured it takes longer than you think for it to engage again. Some studies have shown that a 1-minute distraction can lead to a 20-30-minute delay.
I’d also advocate for having a plan B just in case you do get distracted. Identify what might tempt you to go off task and then decide what you will do if it happens. For example, IF I find myself going to the kitchen to make myself yet another cup of tea, THEN I’ll turn around and sit right back at my desk.
- Do monotasking
When engaging in two or more activities that require cognitive control, i.e. concentration, you are NOT multitasking, you are just switching between tasks. When you do this your performance is slower, of lower quality, your attention is taxed, and stress levels are likely to increase.
As a rule of thumb, monotask as much as possible. Here are some questions from the book Distracted Mind; and if you answer yes to, any of them the advice is to monotask:
- Does it require a lot of thought or is difficult? e.g. reading in Spanish.
- Is there a high risk of negative impact? e.g. driving and texting.
- Is it critical or high in value? e.g. preparing for an interview.
- Is it time sensitive? e.g. a deadline.
4. Practice mindfulness
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to see this here. Practicing mindfulness develops the skills of noticing and directing attention which are crucial to managing it. Dr Amishi P Jha’s research revealed that mindfulness was by far the most effective way to improve focus and increase control over where attention goes. Her studies found a minimum of 12 minutes of daily practice is needed. If you don’t want to sit down in “formal” practice then you could start with noticing sensations, thoughts or the breath when engaged in simple activities such as washing the dishes.
Where do you go from here? Well, I would recommend before selecting one of the four methods to practice: breaks, pre-decision, monotasking or mindfulness, to identify what your attention challenges are. Once you know these you can pick the most appropriate tool to experiment with. Monitor your progress and adapt it if necessary. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t feel immediate benefits from it. As I often tell my coaching clients, change takes time and seeing the results can take even longer. The most successful way to sustain your attention is to rely on habit and training.
To learn more about your attention and how to manage it I’ve included some excellent resources which I drew on to write this article and to design my workshop Managing Your Attention.
- The Distracted Mind by Adam Gazzaley and Larry D Rosen
- Mindsight by Daniel J Siegel
- Driven To Distraction At Work by Edward M Hallowell
- The Procrastination Puzzle by Timothy A Pychyl
- Peak Minds by Dr Amishi P Jha (if you read one thing on this topic, choose this)
Good luck.
Emma Crook