Everyone wants to make good money and build a great career. But you CAN’T build a great career if you disrupt your attention every 5 minutes.
For our ‘Zen Productivity’ pilot program, we got about 500 applications and found that 50% of us are checking our messages every 5-10 minutes or less (30% are doing it in real time).
And every time we switch our attention to check a message, here is what happens:
1. Your brain (specifically, the prefrontal cortex) has to work extra hard to switch off the old neural circuits and switch on the new ones (for the new task).
2. The incomplete task occupies your working memory and causes overwhelm and anxiety. Plus, the old task may still linger in your mind — it is called “attention residue.”
3. You might get sucked into a rabbit hole — in a real world study, participants took 23 minutes to get back to the original task.
4. Since your focus bubble bursts before you go deep, if you keep switching, you will only work with shallow attention.
End result: Stress and anxiety, poor quality work, longer hours, late nights.
Companies can do all the strategic planning. And individuals can have all the lofty career goals.
But if we can’t focus, we are sabotaging our goals every day.
– Rajan