Attention - most scarce resource facing leaders today!

In a world of 24/7 activity where there appears to be very little, if any, time to switch off it’s no wonder that we feel overwhelmed and overloaded with information. We can find out almost anything at the press of a button.

I was recently reading an article from McKinsey claiming the scarce resource leaders have to manage today is their attention. The article goes on to lay out a set of capabilities about how to organise work to allow people to think. If you want to read more you can find the article here:

However, in this blog I’m hoping to provide you with some insight into what you can do to change this. What can you do to take control of your attention and help your team to do the same? 

Training your brain

Being overloaded with information leads to distractedness, confusion and poor decision making. We become paralysed by analysis and endless debate resulting in inefficient and sometimes ‘bad’ decisions and a feeling of standing still or worse being stuck!

Because your attention is fragmented you don’t quite know where to put your focus first. Your brain is flooded with data.

The thing is our brains are not designed to do more than one thing at once. As soon as it becomes overloaded it slows down and uses more of our energy (glucose and oxygen). Prioritising is actually one of the brains most energy hungry processes!

Your best quality thinking lasts for a limited amount of time, which is why at certain times it’s harder to concentrate, or even think straight.

So, how can you organise yourself so that you do your best quality thinking at the right time and deliver better results?

 Managing your attention

Here are my top 5 tips to help you manage your attention and as a consequence your energy.

•   Make a list

As one of my coaches used to say ‘Your brain is a thinking device not a storage device’. If you’re one of those people who prides themselves on being able to remember everything, bear in mind you are using a lot of your brains thinking capacity to do this. If you’ve things ‘to do’ write them down and get them out of your head so you can use your brain for it’s best work: planning, problem solving and communicating.

•   Breathe

Take a long deep breath (or two). Breathe from your diaphragm and loosen your jaw. You can do this as you are walking and if you do you may notice you slow down a little. This is OK! What this action initiates is a kick start for your parasympathetic nervous system. This calms you down and helps you think more clearly. There is a lot more science behind this but this will do for now.

•  Decide when your best thinking time is

I’m a morning person and I know this is when I do my best thinking, so if I have some important thinking to be done this is when I schedule it. Determine what works for you and allocate your meetings that require your best thinking, or attention rich tasks, to these times of the day. An example of this would be anything that requires new concepts or anything you haven’t experienced before - picturing something you haven’t seen before takes a lot more effort from your brain.

I know scheduling these things to your best thinking time isn’t always possible and if you know you’re out of sync you can prepare yourself in a different way.

•  Embed repetitive tasks where you can

Thinking about problems when it relates to things we have experienced before or seen is easy. So if there is anything that you can make a routine – do it! This helps it become ingrained in your brain (and your body) requiring less “thinking capacity”.

•      Remove distractions

Distractions simply add to the information and data in your brain that will send you into overload. You need to become really good at setting boundaries and saying no, or no not now. This may seem harsh, or selfish, and people will get used to it and it is about you operating at your best, so it will be a win/win on all sides in the long run.

Next steps

If you are feeling overwhelmed and know that you are not being as attentive as you know you can be try this out for two or three weeks and let me know how you get on.

If you know, like world class athletes, that additional support helps you become more aware, effective and impactful send me an email to set up a discovery call and we can explore your needs and how I may be able to help you.

"In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact." 

Les Brown