Core Four: The Four Disciplines of Attention Management - DBR 015
Episode 15
Think about attention management. About how we deal with our own ability to focus. That attention is primarily directed at the work we have to do. We need our full attention on our work, at least to the degree that our work is difficult and challenging. One of my clients asked me to organize from the big picture perspective, what we’re trying to do with our attention. What are the big rocks of dealing with our attention effectively. Attention = ability to focus
- There are four pieces, more detail below
- The first piece – Defend your atteniton
- The second piece - Manage your attention
- The third piece – Grow your attention
- The fourth piece – Audit your attention
- Four parts in place mean that we’re really good at this Attention thing
First rock - Defend our attention
- The field is not level
- The three enemies to defense – the three attackers – waste, interruption, and distraction
- The first enemy - Waste is those things that have crept into our lives as, now, habits
- Nobody is doing this to us, we’re doing it to ourselves (lack of focus?)
- We can easily lose ourselves
- Rabbit trails
- Waste from apps
- The second enemy – Theft of our attention through interruption
- We lose our train of thought, our place
- We actually handle this pretty well in most circumstances
- The third enemy – Distraction = self-interruption
- Ideas and reminders pop up at the wrong time
- We combat this one by getting stuff out of our heads
- Defending against three primary things
- Attention Compass covers all three areas
- Get started now – save your attention
Second rock – Manage our attention
- There’s a positive, offensive, “put your attention here” and a negative, defensive, “take things out of your awareness”
- Don’t want it to bother you? You're on defense. Capture it.
- We empty our brains to avoid this kind of distraction
- Eject it from your mind into the outside world and convince your brain that its OK
- We’re not just throwing it off our desk, that's when we get to offense
- Don't want to lose it or hunt for it? You're on offense. Put it where you'll trip over it
- The Attention Compass as a ‘room of requirement’ or ‘magic bag of holding’
- The positive – it’s where you would naturally look for it
- Might have to get inventive on this stuff – laundry basket
- Reminders, used properly
- Two sides of the same coin
- Both of these things are core work and they work together
- These two rest on the first one – not worth it if you’re just frittering attention away
- Also, these two are where the toolset is critical
- Summary – get it out and put it where you’ll trip over it
Attention Compass was developed specifically with this use case in mind Third rock - Extending our attention
- Define extending our attention
- First metaphor – physical strength – duration of strength and intensity of strength
- Second metaphor – source of light – length is battery or bulb life
- Source of light – second is intensity – tight beam
- Extending our attention involves both kinds of extension
- How – discipline – stick for longer
- How – practice – learn quick intensity
- Mindfulness - definition
- Mindfulness in practice – stretch yourself and use the brain dump
- Work on both intensity and duration
- Tactics for extending
- Three enemies of extension – reactivity, perfectionism, procrastination
- The first enemy - reactivity