Time Management Expert, Event Speaker: Mark Lamendola
 

Time Tips: Manage Your Attention Span Tip #3

Have you felt your attention span shrinking, over the years? There are many reasons why this happens, and just about all of them have to do with adaptive behavior. If you have a need to focus and concentrate, then the following items will be very helpful.

But why is it important to have a long attention span, if your goal is to save time? The answer is very simple. You work most efficiently when you are truly paying attention to what you are doing. You're also safer when you're paying attention, which is not good news for drivers in the United States.

Consider the task of writing a letter. Composing a good business letter takes about half an hour. If you have the typical 6-minute attention span, the wandering of your mind is going to show in the quality (or lack thereof) of that letter. To eliminate relatively long periods of working inefficiently (or poorly, meaning you have to do things over), be totally there when you are engaged in the activity.

So, here are some things to consider. You may wish to make your own list.

  • Tune out television. This trains your brain to absorb information in tiny bursts. If you want to be someone who can't read an instruction manual or do anything else that requires more than vapid attention, watch more television. Otherwise, cut it back or even cut it out completely.
     
  • Turn off the phone. There is no reason you must answer your phone just because it rings. People today abuse the phone. I run a business, and I find I must simply refuse to answer it for long stretches. Otherwise, I would not get anything done. In fact, my phone message says, "The best way to reach me is via e-mail."
     
  • Read. This particular skill is rapidly fading in American culture. The United States is becoming a nation of non-readers. Consequently, it is becoming a nation of people who can't think in the abstract (a critical skill) and who simply cannot focus without some video something or other to entertain them.
     
  • Read. Get a variety of reading material. If you stay on a fairly regular diet of books and quality magazines, you will find your attention span growing. Can you sit down and read a novel without stopping? Most of us really don't want to, but some of us can't.
     
  • Write. How often do you write correspondence to friends and family? Do you send paper letters, which require you to think before writing? Do you take the time to compose a thoughtful e-mail, which also requires concentration? These kinds of activities do take time. But by exercising the corresponding areas of your brain, you do everything else more efficiently.
     
  • Read. Do I sound like a broken record on this one? I cannot stress enough how reading hones the brain to make it faster and more powerful. The more you read, the better your attention span will be, also. But take care that you read material that is worth reading.
     
  • Get an attention-demanding hobby or sport. What do climbing, martial arts, ballet, cycling, and painting have in common? They all require the dedication of time to one activity. They exercise your attention span, as well as your body.

 
A great way many businesses are managing time is using software. There are many forms of time and attendance software which allows managers to track and monitor employees time usage.
 

More thoughts on time management

The phrase "time management" is an unfortunate language quirk. You can't really manage time. It just is. You can't gain time, create time, or even lose time. Time is what it is, regardless of what we do.

It would be better to say "time allocation" or "activity management" "time usage" or some other phraseology to indicate that it's not time itself you're managing but how you use the time that exists. But we'll use the common terminology here to avoid confusion.

Some things time management is not:

  • Being more efficient. Suppose you become very efficient at making buggy whips. Does this fact mean you are managing your time well?
  • Getting more done in a given amount of time. Getting more done of what? And to what degree of quality? If you rake the leaves on a lawn from one side to the other all day long, does that mean you are a good time manager?
  • Being able to juggle multiple priorities. Instead of juggling priorities, assign priorities. First tend to the urgent things, then the most important things.
  • Mastering multi-tasking. This concept conflicts with what we know about the human brain. If you buy into this self-defeating, time-wasting, quality-killing ideology, you might also be interested in practicing solo flight by flapping your arms frantically.
  • Working faster. No, this mode is how you make mistakes that you subsequently have to spend more time fixing.

Some things good time management involves:

  • Deciding what to do. This is trickier than it sounds. Which is why there are time management experts.
  • Deciding what not to do. This is even trickier than deciding what to do. Which is why there are time managers and why discipline is a huge, huge factor in accomplishing this.
  • Deciding what to do when, and in what order. In essence, prioritization.
  • Determining the scope, goals, and metrics for each activity you undertake. In this area, we the find most room for improvement. Precision here allows you to avoid waste on the one hand, and falling short on the other.
  • Planning out the work, task, project, or activity such that you determine the necessary steps to quality completion. That is, what must you do to meet the intended goal and quality metrics?
  • Identifying unnecessary steps. Get this right, and you can cut your wasted hours significantly.
  • Figuring out what resources to use. Not all resources applicable to a task are equal. Picking the right tool for the job saves time, improves quality, and makes life less stressful.

We've highlighted only some of the factors involved in good time management. We actually teach extreme time management, which is a methodology that allows you to make effective use of your time almost second nature. You don't need a complicated system. Our system puts many of the variables on autopilot, so you have more time to do what you need to do. Our system goes way beyond most other systems in results, yet is far simpler.

Contact us for a presentation to your organization: comments @ mindconnection.com (remove the spaces after pasting into your e-mail client's "to" box.