I normally read my work email in the morning to jumpstart my workday. This is also the habit of many people I know. However, A few minutes into reading my mail, I would catch myself browsing Facebook or window shopping. I bet this happens to you, too.

Being distracted is a normal phenomena specially now that there are numerous visuals trying to catch our attention: pop ups, text message, alerts and more. This is common in today’s world but takes away a part of our daily goals and affects our bigger goals.

First, why do we get distracted easily? According to LIVE SCIENCE, “Distractions turn on different part of our brains and do so more quickly than the daily grind of paying attention, neuroscientists have discovered.” Now we know why something glittery attracts our attention so fast.

How can we maintain productive when we are surrounded by distractions?

Have you seen a good magic trick before in person? The magician shows you a sponge ball and makes it disappear in front of your eyes and all there is left to say to explain the mystery is that the hand is quicker then the eye. Are the hands really quicker than the eye? Unfortunately, a magician never repeats and never reveals.

The sponge ball is like your daily goals or tasks, it just disappears without you noticing it. Those pop ups, social media alerts and discount notification are the magician’s hand gestures, and backup dancers that drive you away from where you need your attention to be. No, the hand isn’t quicker than the eye. In fact, the magician’s hands are slow but it can hypnotize you the way those discount notice leads you to your shopping cart.

Magic is my hobby, I should have a few ideas about focus and attention management. In my corporate lectures, I use what I know about magic and it’s science to talk about focus, attention and productivity.

We all get distracted. Like I said, it’s normal, the good thing though is there are ways to increase our productivity while being surrounded by distractions. We are already half the battle as we have already recognized that we can be distracted from where our attention should be.

Here are the other tips to manage attention:

1. Control your environment. Be in a place where there is less noise. Since many are WFH, we can inform the people around us about our work schedule but if distractions can’t be avoided, most likely, they are not distractions, they are family.
2. Use an analogue planner. I use pen and paper, this takes away time from using to much screen and avoids unnecessary exposure to temptation. I spend a few minutes planning the day, listing things on the list as well as crossing finished tasks.
3. Compose email on paper. Yes! Do your draft on paper. This takes away exposure on screen. Once you have your thoughts listed down, it’s going to be faster on screen.
4. Manage your thoughts. Brains are made to wander, that’s the beautiful thing about being human. Some people will say control your thoughts but I think we can’t, we can manage our thoughts by acknowledging it’s presence, and keeping note of it while we refocus back to our goal.

Focus and attention can be a tricky matter. when it comes to magic, allow magicians to take control because our main goal when watching magic show is to be astonished and not to solve a puzzle. At work, we can focus on our attention management strategies so we can remain productive.

Just today, I was thinking of a work problem. I have tirelessly tried to find solutions online and endless discussions with colleagues, but to no avail. I just stopped, sat, and remained idle and let my mind wander without thinking about the problem. Moments after, aha! Finally, a solution! The solution came to me after a period of idleness. Yes, IDLENESS, modern man’s cultural sin.

Idleness has a bad connotation. It is associated with laziness, sloth and nonproductive, in a society obsessed with goals, productivity and work. This is something we learned from the society we grew up in. Countries even measure its success based on the output of its people so it is easy to conclude that our value is based on what we create, give or provide.

I think there is value to a reasonable amount of idleness, it can bring light bulb moments and allow a refreshing pause.

There are numerous articles and studies linking idleness to creativity such as this: “My most creative moments come when my brain is allowed to rest,” says Megan King, a graphic designer for the architecture and engineering firm exp Global Inc. As a designer, King is expected to come up with new, compelling ideas all the time. “Sometimes I’ll spend all day working on a project and I’ll feel that I never quite created something that I’m really happy with,” King says. “I’ll get a good night’s sleep and [the next day], get something done in 15 minutes that is more innovative.” Bertrand Russell even wrote an article called In Praise of Idleness. One of his ideas there is a 4-hour workday to allow people time to explore their other passions to create. He hopes that this idea of working less will bring happiness to people.

Idleness is not a devil’s playground, as what we have all learned from the past. Idleness brings forth not just creativity but also rest. Yes, we can be idle for idleness sake or for pleasure. Pleasure is an ancient idea, “Aristotle celebrated the value of leisure as a cornerstone of intellectual enlightenment. He believed that true leisure involves pleasure, happiness, and living blessedly. It is more than mere amusement and is impossible for those who must work most of the time.”

Yes, a decent amount of idleness and pleasure is something we all need. It is time to reassess our belief that idles is bad. The quarantine has gifted us with less travel, and more available time. Having idle time should not make us feel guilty instead, those moments should be reserved to recharge and allow the mind to wander.

Source:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/202001/the-secret-power-idleness

https://www.jsonline.com/story/life/green-sheet/advice/philip-chard/2018/11/30/idle-reflections-value-doing-nothing/2123705002/

Photo by Retha Ferguson on Pexels.com

What is your life’s purpose? This question is a million dollar question and is very hard to answer in a snap. It takes a lot of time and introspection to get to the answer. Some people live their life not knowing their purpose and not having one. This is so sad.

Let us take a moment to step back and ask ourselves the question, what is my purpose or what am I made for? Continue reading →

This is one of the books I read during ECQ and it’s fitting of the time we are in. I bought this book a year or 2 ago from Amazon. I am going to share with you his mindset, managerial, & leadership lessons I learned from reading this book.

To give a brief background of the author, Shigetaka Komori was the CEO of Fujifilm. He was the CEO that successfully brought Fujifilm to a new era after weathering the digital revolution storm in the early 2000. I find this book as valuable as taking a Masters Degree or even Ph.D. because of the wisdom and experience he shared in managing the company.

First his leadership style. He does not believe in consensus leadership, where one gets the views of each stakeholder. He said that this type of leadership is fine when everything is going well but in times of crisis, one must be decisive and take full responsibility for whatever the outcome will be.

As a manager, he has a valuable strategic framework we can bring to our business. He has a direct 4 step strategic planning framework.

1. Read. Learn to read and feel the situation. Understand what is happening and learn what is happening. He would read magazines and newspapers to get valuable information. Sometimes, he would read something this week and his questions won’t be answered until he cross checks another source of information. This process of reading has helped him in making good business predictions.
2. Plan. Planning is his way of understanding what his priorities will be. This is also his source of script that he will use to motivate the employees.
3.  Communicate. No CEO can do it by himself, he needs to communicate the plan to everyone in the company to motivate them to join the cause.
4. Act. Like any CEO, this is the most important. No plan is ever great without action.

Finally, his mindset towards competition which he values. For him it is very important to be competitive, to win in an honest way. This is the only way to make the company win. When this is the mindset, it is not the the company that wins, but the whole country too. This attitude towards being competitive is something he got from his father. One time he came home after being picked on by an older boy, his father gave him a beating and told him to go back and finish the fight. From then on he learnt not to give up.

I have read many business books, but this is one of those books that has plenty of valuable lessons one can apply in any size of business. I sure will be including the lessons I learned here to my future lectures. If you are interested, you can get this from Amazon.