Featured In
Posts Tagged ‘attention’
Attention Management Infographic by Brian Massey
My dear friend and awesome Conversion Scientist, Brian Massey attended my RISE session yesterday, titled, “Time Management is Out. What’s Next?” I watched him taking fast and furious notes, but I had no idea he was creating such a fantastic infographic of my presentation!
Brian’s infographic skills are in high demand so I feel truly blessed that he created this for me, but also that he’s allowing me to share it. Brian’s talents are numerous and he sometimes offers free conversion analyses of websites. I would suggest that you try to get on his schedule. You won’t be sorry. Thank you so much, Brian, for sharing your talent with me!
(For a larger version, click the image, then select “Actions, View all Sizes.”)
What You Can Learn About Life from a Good Receptionist
I spent summers during high school working for temp agencies, often as a receptionist during staff vacations. It was great business experience. It showed me how a busy office operates, taught me proper business etiquette, and forced me to get really good at typing! All valuable skills for my future career.
One thing that a receptionist will learn with some experience is that in terms of priority, customers standing in front of you always come before customers on the phone. If someone has walked into a business, the receptionist should give them his or her immediate attention. If the phone rings, the caller gets placed on hold while the receptionist finishes assisting the customer in front of them.
With everyone practically carrying “the world in their pocket” via their smartphone, sometimes we forget to prioritize the existence of others in our presence, or real-world experiences, over the demands on our attention from calls, emails, text messages, FaceBook and Twitter updates, and check-ins (especially to see who else is there, as if the person we came with is not enough.) Not to mention the pull to look up the answer to the question that’s been bothering us, or to check the weather for tomorrow while we’re thinking of it, or to see how far it is to our next appointment.
All of these things add a new and rich dimension to our lives, and I’m an avid user of most of these fantastic communication tools. However, consider this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”
Those are moments that can only happen when you are present in the life that you are living at that moment, and not the one happening inside the little box in your hand. Personally, I’d hate to miss one of those moments that King describes. I think it serves me to remember what I learned during my years as a receptionist.
Thanks for reading!
Thoughts on Checking Email First Thing in the Morning
I don’t claim to be a professional organizer, but I can’t deny that there is a close relationship between organization and productivity. Recently my dear friend and nationally renowned professional organizing expert Lorie Marrero of ClutterDiet wrote on her blog about some prevalent productivity advice. I began to write in her comments and then realized I had way too much to say on the topic. So Lorie, thank you for inspiring my blog post this morning! I definitely recommend that you head over to Lorie’s excellent blog and read her post for yourself. My thoughts follow…
The premise of her post is that contrary to popular advice, it’s ok to check email first thing in the morning. For me, the real question is whether or not you are supporting your own focused attention, or sabotaging it. Thank you for reminding me, Lorie, that there is always “sound-bite” advice and then there is the whole story. In this fast-paced media-rich, short-attention span environment we live in, perhaps I’m guilty of too often giving “sound-bite advice.” But I frequently tell people that when it comes to professional advice, the answer to pretty much any question you ask will often be: “it depends.” The same is true here: should you check email first thing in the morning? It depends.
It depends on if you have a handheld device. Believe it or not, there are still many people who don’t, and their only option for email is their computer. But I talk a lot about how technology is making old “time management” advice outdated, and this is a good example – the “old advice” is that you shouldn’t check messages first thing in the morning, because handheld devices first didn’t exist for email, and then weren’t that prevalent. That’s certainly not the case anymore, however I don’t think we’re quite at the point yet, where we can assume that everybody has one.
It depends on if you are an independent professional/self-employed, or if you work in an office. I think this is an important distinction with regard to your email schedule. You are less likely to miss something by foregoing email if you are sitting at your desk in a large office and you decide to tackle your task list instead of checking email. Someone will pop their head in, you’ll overhear something, or they’ll call you.
It depends on if you have time to be proactive that morning, or if you are rushing off to a meeting. The whole point, as Lorie mentioned, of not checking email first thing, is to have some *pro*active time. Don’t go to email first thing, so you can spend some time being proactive, knocking off items on your task list. If you were rushing off to a meeting that morning, you wouldn’t have proactive time anyway, nor would you be able to get sucked in to your email, so checking to see if that meeting has been delayed or canceled is certainly prudent.
It depends on how you’ve trained those with whom you have a relationship. Regarding “digging in our heels and insisting people should behave differently”…I actually don’t think this is what happens most of the time. For the people you don’t interact with often, like the random press request, Lorie is absolutely right. I’d go out on a limb and say the vast majority of actual communication most people get via email (not spam or robomails or newsletters, but actual communication) is from people with whom they have a relationship. And if you have a relationship with them, you’ve probably “trained” them in how to communicate with you, whether you realize it or not. Real estate agents ask me, “how do I get my clients to stop calling me at 9 o’clock at night?” My response: “stop answering.” People who need to communicate with you will do what works. If you have “trained” them that you will respond to an email within 5 minutes, then they will feel comfortable using email for emergencies. If however, they email you about something important and you don’t respond, they will typically try reaching you some other way and the way that works, is probably the way they will use next time. So it’s not about wishing and hoping that everyone else will do things differently, but rather about setting up the circumstances so that your own productivity is supported rather than sabotaged.
But for the record, if you have a handheld advice, AND you have the self-discipline not to get sucked in, I think skimming your messages on your handheld device several times a day, including first thing in the morning, is certainly a valid option (I do it myself). Just be careful, because there might be nothing to stop you from scanning on your phone, and then rushing off to your computer to “just respond to this one…” And then it’s all downhill from there!
Thanks so much to Lorie, for her great advice, and for providing the opportunity for a nuanced discussion of a common productivity technique! She knows I’m a fan. =)
Researcher Interview #1 Part 4
Click to Listen (4 1/2 minutes)
MT: This is Maura Thomas from RegainYourTime.com. Thanks for coming back to hear part four of my interview with Dr. John Dovidio, psychology professor at Yale University. You can see the previous posts by clicking the link at the top of this page and prior pages.
…That’s actually a really great perspective. I talk to a lot of people often who are becoming a little bit overwhelmed with the idea that, you know, “there is just too much and I can’t catch up.” And I…I run into people every day who are deciding, in fact they even put it in these terms, “I’m trying to decide what my limit is. And…you know, ok I did email, and now I’ve done Facebook, but I’m not going to do Twitter! That’s just where I’m drawing the line, and anything else that comes out, I’m just all done.” (laughing)
JD: (laughing) Mmm hmmm.
MT: So…and there certainly is an age component to this. But it’s…it’s really interesting to hear you say…talk about how humans have overcome this throughout history and…and…how we’re actually really good at it, and perhaps people should…take heart in that…in that idea.
JD: Oh yeah, I’m mean, we’ve…we’ve overcome worse!
MT: Sure. Sure.
JD: (laughing) We could overcome quite a bit!
MT: (laughing) Right.
JD: But I do…you know, at the same time, I think you’re also right by saying…and the people you quoted are right by saying, you’ve got to be cautious, realizing that whatever benefits might…benefits might be coming with the software and hardware development that we see in communication, we have to always understand that there is probably something that’s going to be lost because we just have a limited amount of time, we have a limited capacity for attention, …we have a limited capacity for being able to think and make decisions. Those are the bounds of being human, just like any other animal. And so how do we actually teach people to use a lot of these media in a way that works to their benefit so that they don’t become overwhelmed or develop those habits so strongly that they’re hard to reverse.
You won’t remember this, and I really don’t remember it personally, but when television came in, you know, that changed everything, right? People said, “well television is taking away from human relations. People are no longer talking to one another, they are no longer looking face-to-face, what they’re doing is they’re sitting side-by-side, and the quality of their relationships is going to go down, and tv is going to be the end of everything because people are going to become sedentary, they’re going to become passive, they’re going to need more stimulation. And they’re going to lose sight between what’s real and what’s everyday life.” And to some extent that was true, but then people adjust to it and now we look at tv and we see that as “how…how benign and passive.”
MT: That was part four of my interview with Dr. John Dovidio, psychology professor at Yale University. I hope you’ll come back tomorrow for the fifth and final portion of the interview where I’ll ask Dr. Dovidio about the value of reflection and quiet moments. Also, if you’re interested in reading up on the current research, please visit the Research and Resources page of this website. This is Maura Thomas from RegainYourTime.com. Thanks for visiting!
(Click here for the conclusion of the interview.)
Researcher Interview #1, Part 1
For an introduction to this series, click here.
Click to Listen (3 minutes)
(Interview conducted by Maura Thomas, Chief Trainer at RegainYourTime.com)
MT: I’m speaking with Dr. John Dovidio from Yale University and he has been kind enough to allow me to interview him about attention and multitasking and the somewhat conflicting studies that are coming out lately around both of these. Dr. Dovidio teaches psychology at Yale. Thanks for taking the time.
JD: Thank you.
MT: So I sent you a passage from an article by Matt Richtel from the New York Times…Matt Richtel is doing a series called “Your Brain on Computers” and this particular quote from his article says,
“Scientists say juggling email, phone calls, and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information. These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement, a dopamine squirt, that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.”
Matt Richtel: “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price,” the New York Times
So I’ll first ask you, do you agree with his conclusions and do you have any thoughts?
JD: I think his conclusions…his argument is a good one, in that from an evolutionary perspective, we’re built to be attentive to things that tend to grab our attention, that we tend to lose focus. And we’ll keep…we’re very much attuned to things like motion, activity, color, flashes, because those all had evolutionary importance to us. So it’s easy to become captivated by all the different things that you see on computers, on the web, and all the other devices that we have around us. But it doesn’t mean that that is our destiny. I think he oversimplifies it a little bit, by saying, just because we have an evolutionary tendency to do something, doesn’t mean we can’t make adjustments, contemporary adjustments, to have that simulation work for us.
MT: This is Maura Thomas from RegainYourTime.com. Thanks for listening to part one of my interview with Dr. John Dovidio, psychology professor at Yale University. I hope you’ll come back tomorrow to hear or read our discussion of the differences in the effects of media-multitasking in children’s brains vs. adult brains. Also, if you’re interested in reading up on the current research, please visit the “Research and Resources” page of this website. Thanks for visiting!
(Click here for Part 2 of the interview.)
I Won! Would You Read This Business Book?
Well, the votes are in and thanks to all the wonderful support from my friends, clients, and colleagues, my book proposal was selected as the winner in the Business Book Pitchfest, sponsored by Networlding and Crowdspring. I am truly humbled by the support and grateful to every person who voted for me. I’m excited to put my work together in a book, and about the opportunities for new partners, customers, and directions that a published book could bring.
I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, and first is deciding to self-publish (with a small boutique publisher) or pitch to an agent or a large publishing house. I look forward to learning about the publishing industry, and if you have any insight for me, I would be very grateful for you to share your wisdom with me. Please contact me directly at maura at regainyourtime dot com.
A short description of the book-in-process is below, and I’d also love to hear from you if you have specific challenges or areas of interest related to this topic, that you would like to see addressed in the book. Would you read this?
Book-in-Process: Control Your Attention, Control Your Life: Succeeding in the Attention Age
Summary:
Change is upon us. Technology is evolving faster than ever before, and the sheer volume of information to manage is staggering. Digital Convergence is changing the way we communicate and learn. Although technology evolves very quickly, our brains evolve very slowly, and the rapid advance in technology over the last 40 years is shaping that evolution. It is literally rewiring our brains. The old ideas of multitasking and time management in the “Information Age” are being replaced by new ideas of focus and the Attention Age. The secret of productivity, of getting things done, of living the life we want now comes down to the ability to manage our attention. This goes way beyond time management, and it’s much more complicated than a calendar and an address book, or even the latest gadget or app. It requires greater knowledge of how our brains work, an understanding of the demands on our attention, and a rich, but uncomplicated, arsenal of behaviors, techniques, and technology. This book will contain step-by-step instructions to learn to control attention by effectively managing the details of a busy life (commitments, communication, and information), discussing not only a behavioral methodology but also incorporating paper, PC, Mac, handheld, and cloud-based solutions.
I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for reading, and for voting!
Incorporate Change in 3 Easy Steps (Part 1)
We all know that changing our behaviors is hard. Knowing we should exercise isn’t enough to get us into the gym or out on the Trail every day. It’s why most New Year’s Resolutions don’t last beyond January. But there are three components to changing behaviors, and considering these might make it much easier for you to incorporate those new things into your life.
Whether it’s “going green,” improved productivity, or incorporating a new initiative, like volunteering, into your life, if you consider the following three steps, you can do these, or most anything else, much easier.
The first component is awareness. Most of our habits are so ingrained in our lives and behavior that we don’t even recognize them anymore. Becoming aware of the behaviors that aren’t serving you is the first step in changing them. For example, if you want to incorporate more environmentally friendly habits into your lifestyle, it’s important to understand what you’re doing that doesn’t serve that desire. Do you leave the water running when you brush your teeth? Do you participate in your city’s recycling program? Do you buy recycled products? Try to think about areas where you could improve, perhaps even make a list. Then the next time an opportunity presents itself, you’ll be more likely to remember that you want to change the behavior instead of just being on “autopilot” as you move through your day.
Do you pay attention to how you work every day? Do you know how often you check your email in a day? The answer might surprise you. Do you have a process for managing your workload, or do you just respond to whatever calls your attention all day? Give some thought to your existing behaviors. Once you are aware of what you want to change, to the extent that you can articulate them to someone else, you’ll then become aware of opportunities to change them. What you measure is what gets improved. So what are YOU measuring?
Tomorrow I’ll post step 2, Education . Thanks for reading!