It was bad enough when all we had to worry about tuning out were traffic jams, television sets, commercials, ringing telephones and doorbells. Sometime over the last ten years, though, gradually, we gained an additional set of layers of “noise” to deal with: the public cellphone conversation, the instant message, flashing ads in our elevators and in our public transit, and now the proliferation of all kinds of “social” media vying for increasingly smaller moments of our waking life stream.
Think about Twitter. If you’re following more than 100 people, it isn’t that hard to be receiving at least one tweet per minute. Of course, you’re probably not reading them all, either. But some social media consultants and writers have described Twitter and Twitter Search as the most powerful “real-time” media available. The window on what the world is saying and doing just got a whole lot closer, like zooming in to take a microscopic recording of our shared moments. Take a look at the now-famous spoof on Twitter, Flutter (video below):
As our life stream becomes subject to ever-smaller parceling based on our drive to multi-task and attend to all the calls made upon us, there are two basic strategies for dealing with it, but they both involve what I’m going to be talking about on a deeper level, which is how to control your attention. The first strategy is to increase your productivity in order to meet all the demands on your time and attention (and if you get right down to it, your time is just the attention you have available for any given thing). The other main strategy is to simplify and do less. Lots of great bloggers and productivity coaches, however, will show you how you can combine these strategies:
Be more productive by working more effectively. Less is more. 80% of the benefits come from a key 20% of your to-do list.
Whether we want to work harder, or just work smarter, we need to become adept at directing our attention. One of the key things to realize here is that our attention is often pulled outwards and tempted by sensory objects – sounds, images, movement, smells. Conversely, our will to do more, eat better, save money and stay on schedule is often ruled by our more “abstract” thinking. If you don’t link up these two modes – attention and the will – they’ll often be out of sync. Your will wants to not spend any money today, but your attention is grabbed by the Cinnabon stand and pulls you over.
This is probably why the power of visualization is so successful in attaining our goals. Because it’s like a reminder “before-the-fact” of what our attention should be focused on. If our attention has a special affinity with the things we can see, touch, taste or hear, then visualizing what we want ahead of time can help lead us to it. Visualization (or just fully imagining how the situation would look, sound, happen) links our will with our attention.
If You’re Not Part Of Your Own Plan, You’ll Be Part Of Someone Else’s
If you don’t “pre-program” your attention in this way (by visualizing what you want and need ahead of time), it will be easier to get sidetracked. Your attention will be looking for anything and everything that interests it if it is not on a mission like this.
To expand the metaphor (bear with me, any readers that don’t like these metaphors!:)), imagine a microscope, laser beam or camera lens. Your attention is the light — what makes things visible to you. But your will is what adjusts the lens and sharpens or redirects the beam of light. If you choose to, you can put filters on the beam so that you direct your attention just at what matters for what you need to do. Danielle Miller has some great thoughts on this in her article Do You Have Your Success Blinders On? She argues that “people who achieve and experience the most success are basically wearing “success blinders”. They stay focused on the goal in front of them and are not distracted by things that are in their peripheral vision.”
So how do you know when to put filters on, what kind, how to focus the beam? Because you just can’t be doing it willy nilly. Your film will look like a mess. You need to know your purpose and have a plan. In some ways, these come before you put your will into motion. You know what they say: if you’re not part of your own plan, you’re part of someone else’s. The world will direct us unless and until we start directing ourselves.
Oh, and don’t feel guilty when you start to become absorbed in work that matters or fuels you. As Marc and Angel have put it in a recent tweet, “If you catch yourself working hard and loving every minute of it, don’t stop. You’re on to something big.”
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I find Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits to be a effective way of focusing my attention on the right topics. Even if you are not too methodical about following the principles, if you just realign your mindset in that manner you will be on your way towards more productivity and better balance.
You are raining down the motivation on us today. This is one of my favorite articles from you! Bravo my friend. The busier that I get, the more I’m trying to work smarter…not harder. To this end, I even bought a blackberry today. Hope it helps.
Blessings to ya!
TAM
@arohan – I haven’t read Covey’s book, actually, but I’ve read many others that touch on the same topic. Even 4HWW deals with it. And various Zen-inspired books. I learned the 80/20 principle a long time ago and for me that sums a lot of it up. It’s hard to make the jump, though.
@TAM – thanks! And thanks for buying Canadian:) just joking… I still don’t know if I’ll get an iPhone or a RIM product… still using my old cell, saving money…
Small is definitely the new big.
I use timeboxes to minimize and maximize my connected time. when it’s unboxed, that’s when I get into trouble.
That’s true, if you’re not able to decide what you want and don’t want to spend your time/money/attention on, you’ll get scammed and used by others. Just be aware of the stuff that’s happening around you.
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