At the end of the year, I tend to be a little more reflective than during the rest of the year. In part, this post is a reminder to me about how I get distracted and lose focus–way too easily. In part, it’s an observation of things I see every day.
What provoked this happened a few days ago. I was treating myself to a breakfast at a favorite restaurant. I’m a regular, they know my favorite table is in the back where I can observe everyone else. I was struck by a couple a few tables away from me. They were both focused on their devices. Clearly interacting with different people in different places. Each even had a few conversations with others, through their devices. Through the 45 minutes they were there, they may have exchanged a total of 10 words with each other. I wondered why they were there, together. Clearly, those they were each interacting with were more important.
I looked around the restaurant, noticing similar, though less extreme behaviors. The majority of people had their devices on the tables, at the ready. I would see many sneaking glances as some sort of message or alert came in. Most were talking to each other, but there were always the distractions.
At the gym, it’s even a problem. The other day, someone was using a machine I wanted to use. Waiting for him, I managed to get three sets of 15 reps in on the other machine. In 15 minutes, he had done one set of 5 reps. The rest of the time, he was focused on his device. Politely, I asked him, “Can I work a set in really quickly?” He, didn’t look up, kept swiping through his device, saying, “I haven’t finished.”
Similar behavior has become a constant at meetings. I see people looking at their devices, half their attention is on the meeting, half somewhere else. Every once in a while, someone asks another person a question. Too often, you see them looking up from a screen, “Huh? Could you please repeat that….”
And then, all of us our victims or our declining attention span. Research shows we stay focused for 27 seconds, then shift, then shift, then…… And we circle back, but then there is the restart penalty that slows us even further. Generally, it takes us twice as long to restart.
The apps make this even tougher. Even if I’m working on my computer, focused on a window, I see something happening in the background windows. Some new emails have arrived, I see the number of new emails change in that tab. Something has happened on LinkedIn, I see the notification number constantly ticking up. All sorts of alerts pop up. Somehow, despite my efforts to stop alerts, I keep seeing them. As I write this, I’m distracted by the 10 notifications that have just come in on LinkedIn—I promise, I’ll finish this post before I look at them.
All the apps demand our attention, diverting us from what we are doing, saying, “You need to pay attention to me!” And we succumb, losing track of that urgent task we were working on.
(Oops, I just succumbed to LI notifications. They demanded my attention! I go a bunch of likes on some posts, a few people I followed posted something…. So glad I let myself be distracted to get that important news!)
Over the last 18-24 months, we are enamored with AI! Theoretically, it takes away much of the burden of things that demand our attention. I now get my email prioritized the way AI thinks it should be. I get summaries, which I read, before I read the emails itself. I even get summaries of all the Spam messages.
These tools that are supposed to give us more time to focus on what’s important, tend to create their own diversions. Perhaps we have more time to be more distracted.
With all our devices, all the AI and other tools that help us get more done. The data continues to show we are more distracted. As busy as we are, we are getting less done. More important, research shows increased mental anxiety, feelings of isolation, loneliness. As human beings, our satisfaction and happiness is in jeopardy (of course someone will remind me there are apps for that).
It’s madness!
Sometimes, the nerd in me reacts, “I need to reboot my mind and clear out the mental cache! It’s overwhelming, I have to clear it out!”
We know we have to be present, pay attention. We know we have to shut down all the extra windows on our computers. Focusing on one thing at a time. We know the joy we get from interacting and engaging with other people! Whatever it is, that human to human connection is important.
We (I) need to continue to persevere. We need to be conscious in that process. There are lots of books offering advice. I’m struggling. A mile walk in the evening–I leave my phone at home. Meditation twice a day. Moving from three screens on my desk to one. Keeping (or at least trying hard) to keep one window open at a time. (Why did Bill Gates invent Windows!! Things were so much easier with MS-DOS).
Attend a meeting with me, you will see a basket at the center of the conference table–all devices go in there. Still trying to figure out how to keep attention of others on virtual meetings. One of my techniques is asking lots of questions, engaging everyone in the meeting.
Part of it is recognizing the pure joy of focused human to human interactions. Talking to another person, learning about them, working with them to solve a problem, paying attention. The more I do it, the more I want to do it more.
I don’t have any magic solutions. I struggle, but I think I am more present, more often, than I have been.
I’ll stop here, the number count on LinkedIn, X, and email is rising–have to see what’s happening.
All the best for a less distracted New Year! Thanks for the privilege of letting me engage you with my rambling in the past year.
Afterword: Here is the AI generated discussion. One of the things that is interesting is noticing the hallucinations these tools create. All my attempts to “train” this, there are always errors. But despite this, they do offer some interesting insights.
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