Our Attention, Please
A year into the pandemic, it helps to reflect on lessons learned from our shared experience of uncertainty, confusion and disruption. Many of us hope to take the positives from this reimagined world of work and carry them into the future: less rushing around, more quality time with family, increased gratitude and intention in our day to day.
But I’ve noticed a less desirable byproduct from this extended time in quarantine. My central nervous system is spent. We’ve been operating in fight or flight mode for a sustained period. Our attention is demanded by myriad clickbait: Read this salacious headline! Your kids need this for virtual school! LOOK OVER HERE — a new email, slack notification, text message, social media update for YOU! Even the most zen among us gets pulled into the sticky web of the attention economy. It robs us of rewarding deep work. We’re less connected to the clients and customers we serve. Once lauded flexibility to work from home has lengthened our workday and created an always-on, frequently interrupted existence.
The good news is there are ways to consciously take back our attention and jumpstart our creativity.
1. Reimagine the right mix of synchronous and asynchronous work. Think about what work must be done with others in the moment versus tackled independently. Create team guidelines and expectations around necessary work meetings, the fundamental use of email and slack (as well as expectations around response times) and shift goals to outcomes, rather than tracking hours worked. What would happen if your whole team (or company) was prohibited from using email on Fridays? What if you had limits placed on the number of messages you were permitted to send each week? What if each meeting you attend or create must first have a clear agenda, distinct role for each person to play, and end in 25 minutes or less? These might sound like radical concepts, but as more of our workforce migrate to a hybrid culture, it will demand rethinking how and when we connect to manage the flow of information.
2. Invest in gathering customer stories. Last week I spoke on Hacking HR’s panel, Fostering a Creative Mindset. Fellow panelist, Christian Busch, shared a compelling story about creative constraints. Years ago, Chinese appliance company, Haier, listened to its customers and heard the following top complaint: “My washing machine won’t work after I use it to rinse this morning’s harvest.” It turns out their product was being used by local farmers to wash potatoes. Rather than dismiss the issue (um, potatoes in your washing machine?), they adapted their product and created special filters to trap the dirt. Haier created a leading clothing and potato washing machine — opening up an entirely new revenue stream. Where might this creative mindset apply with our clients and customers? What opportunities are we missing?
3. Create boundaries to limit the tax on our attention. I realize this isn’t the easiest. But the more disciplined we can be to time block deep work without distraction, find our creative flow and discover uninterrupted periods of creative problem solving, the more fulfilled we’ll be in our work. I do my best to segment my work time and limit my news and social media consumption. I also know the time of day my energy peaks — so I use that time to tackle the highly creative, strategic and imagination-demanding work. Can you put limits on the time you respond to email or attend meetings? Can you protect regular time on your calendar to immerse yourself in deep work? Is there routine work you could be outsourcing or automating?
Our attention is a precious, high-value commodity. After the 12 months we’ve all had, we’re ready to recharge and have less cortisol pulsing through our systems. That’s both an individual responsibility, as well as a social contract with the interconnected world in which we work. When we take back the rights to our attention, we reclaim our potential for creativity and peace of mind. The rest can wait.
