![]() Unfortunately, in the world we live in, it’s not that simple anymore. ‘Focus’ is often seen as something we can force ourselves to do when we need to. The truth is, I was getting frustrated with how hard I find it to concentrate on difficult work tasks, or how I’m incapable of waiting for anything for longer than 10 seconds without reaching for my phone. I admit, a book with the words ‘work’ and ‘rules’ in the title doesn’t sound very enticing. That was my mom’s reaction when I told her about the book I was reading - Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport. “Why do you need to learn how to focus? You just do it when you need to. There is more content about attention management throughout this site and the concept is also the basis for my book, Personal Productivity Secrets.Charlotte Grysolle - 8 min read Photo by Nong Vang on Unsplash ![]() However, in 1968, famed management consultant Peter Drucker called mindfulness essentially the ability to successfully manage yourself, before you can successfully manage circumstances, situations, and other people - illustrating an essential use in business as well.Īll of these words have similar meanings, but I hope that seeing them described differently and as applied to different situations will help to further clarify “controlling your attention” and illustrate the many benefits it can bring, not only to your productivity, but to virtually every aspect of your life. This may seem more relevant for your personal life in terms of the benefits it can bring to your relationships. Mindfulness is the complete and undistracted focus on the experience one is having in the present moment where past and future do not exist. ![]() This is the term getting the most attention lately, and is actually even being referred to as a “science,” as in “the science of mindfulness,” although it is probably just a new tangent for attention research. You may still think of meditation as “new age” or outside the mainstream, but it’s just another synonym for “controlling your attention” and the other terms described here, which all have very practical and beneficial purposes. Practicing meditation and eventually learning to achieve that state for longer and longer periods of time has recently been shown to have numerous benefits for mental and physical health, disposition, memory, brain function, and pain reduction, to name a few. One is said to be “practicing meditation” when engaged in actively trying to empty the mind of all conscious thought. This is often described as relating to athletes: a presence of mind that allows brain and body to work in perfect sync where movements are perfectly executed by muscle memory and training, rather than by conscious thought. It was first proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in his landmark book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. It is described as the state of complete absorption in what one is currently doing, and is associated with peak performance and optimal learning. This behavior is also quite useful in everyday circumstances that are not life-threatening.īusiness professionals and creatives often seek this condition. This keeps them safe and allows them to best handle the situation. Military and first responders credit “situational awareness” with their ability to assess a set of circumstances and be thoughtfully proactive, rather than just jumping into the chaos and reacting to the first thing they see or hear. And I’ve discovered that many people use many different words to describe the ability and the practice of controlling your attention. I call this “attention management,” and this belief has led me to the study of attention research, which is a hot field in psychology and neuroscience right now. I believe that control, and specifically, control over your own attention, is the secret to peak productivity and to living a life of choice. The more I study productivity and effectiveness, the more I have become convinced that it has led me to the secret of life.
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