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07 Jul 09
Andrea SaveriThe subject of focus comes up a lot on this blog and in my discussions with people about work. We talk about the constant interruptions of working in the digital age, of the mistakes we make while multitasking, and the efforts to find quiet places to thin
attention business collaboration howto management mind productivity psychology patternrecognition amplified
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Distracted? And how. Beeped and pinged, interrupted and inundated, overloaded and hurried – that’s how we live today. We prize knowledge work — work that relies on our intellectual abilities — and yet increasingly feel that we have no time to think. For all our connectivity, we often catch little more than snippets and glimpses of one another. The greatest casualty of our mobile, high-tech age is attention. By fragmenting and diffusing our powers of attention, we are undermining our capacity to thrive in a complex, ever-shifting world. Consider the mounting costs of this widespread distraction: * The average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and once distracted, a worker takes nearly half an hour to resume the original task, according to Gloria Mark, a leader in the new field of “interruption science.” * Interruptions and the requisite recovery time now consume 28 percent of a worker’s day, the business research firm Basex estimates. The risks are clear. As one top executive told me, “Knowledge work can’t be done in sound bites.” * Employees who are routinely interrupted and lack time to focus are more apt to feel frustrated, pressured and stressed, according to separate studies by Ms. Mark and the nonprofit group, Families and Work Institute. * Under deadline pressure, workers produce creative work on days when they are focused, not when they are scattered and interrupted, a study published in the Harvard Business Review found. * In meetings where everyone is checking e-mail, opportunities for collective creative energy and critical thinking are lost, argues Nathan Zeldes, a senior engineer at Intel and a leader of the recently founded the nonprofit organization, Information Overload Research Group, based in New York. At home as well, split focus gives a clear message, “You aren’t worth my time.”
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Distracted? And how. Beeped and pinged, interrupted and inundated, overloaded and hurried – that’s how we live today. We prize knowledge work — work that relies on our intellectual abilities — and yet increasingly feel that we have no time to think. For all our connectivity, we often catch little more than snippets and glimpses of one another. The greatest casualty of our mobile, high-tech age is attention. By fragmenting and diffusing our powers of attention, we are undermining our capacity to thrive in a complex, ever-shifting world. Consider the mounting costs of this widespread distraction: * The average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and once distracted, a worker takes nearly half an hour to resume the original task, according to Gloria Mark, a leader in the new field of “interruption science.†* Interruptions and the requisite recovery time now consume 28 percent of a worker’s day, the business research firm Basex estimates. The risks are clear. As one top executive told me, “Knowledge work can’t be done in sound bites.†* Employees who are routinely interrupted and lack time to focus are more apt to feel frustrated, pressured and stressed, according to separate studies by Ms. Mark and the nonprofit group, Families and Work Institute. * Under deadline pressure, workers produce creative work on days when they are focused, not when they are scattered and interrupted, a study published in the Harvard Business Review found. * In meetings where everyone is checking e-mail, opportunities for collective creative energy and critical thinking are lost, argues Nathan Zeldes, a senior engineer at Intel and a leader of the recently founded the nonprofit organization, Information Overload Research Group, based in New York. At home as well, split focus gives a clear message, “You aren’t worth my time.â€
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Brent SordylIn meetings where everyone is checking e-mail, opportunities for collective creative energy and critical thinking are lost, argues Nathan Zeldes, a senior engineer at Intel
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