Time is the resource, but attention is the problem.
Chess players don’t use to-do lists — they just pay attention.
The other day my wife sent me a link to this item by Linda Stone, which gets at a major problem I see all around us in the business world.
Is it Time to Retire the Never-Ending List?
One afternoon, earlier this year, as I was scanning a long list that I was adding to endlessly, I realized, “I’ll never get it all done. That’s probably just fine. But this endless list and this feeling of being completely scheduled . . . it’s not working right now.”
I met some friends for dinner and put the question out: “Do you have a never-ending list? Do you manage your time? Do you manage minutes, tasks, and lists? Do you start each day with a list that has more on it at the end of the day than it did at the beginning of the day, in spite of how many items are completed and crossed off?
“Or do you manage your attention? Do you manage emotions, intention, and make choices about what will and will not get done? What are your favorite ways to do this?”
The article’s not perfect,* but it shines a light on a very important problem, one that I’ve been talking about for a while with my friends. It’s the problem expressed in the title of this post:
Time is the resource, but attention is the problem.
Other resources are fungible, but not time. If you lose money, you can make more money. If you lose a valued member of your team, you can cover for them to some degree, and you can go find another talented person who can succeed them. But if you lose time . . . it’s gone forever.
What’s to be done?
Like Stone, I agree that the answer to handling this one-way flow isn’t to manage time harder and harder. Here’s what Stone found from those she polled:
In the cases where people reported managing their time, they more often reported experiencing burn-out, they didn’t know how much longer they could go on at their particular job or lifestyle. There was often a sense of helplessness and overwhelm. The endless list, the one that gets added to and never completed, at the center of it all, left them with a heavy heart and a burdened sense of tomorrow.
Sound familiar at all? Ringing any bells? Consider the contrast with the “surgeons, artists, and CEO’s” that Stone polled, who “reported that they managed both their time and their attention.”
In surgery, in the studio, and in the time carved out to think through strategies and issues, these professionals reported shutting down the devices and endless inputs (email, phone, interruptions), at scheduled times, and claiming those moments to focus. In almost every case, these professionals reported experiencing “flow” (a la Csikszentmihalyi) in their work.
We’ve talked here before (more than once) about the work of Prof. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. His bestselling book Flow explains his psychological research into when and how people experience the deepest satisfaction in their work.
Pay attention!
While the use of time is an important aspect of Flow, it pales in comparison to marshalling full attention toward the work at hand. People report higher satisfaction in their work — even when the work itself is less intrinsically interesting — when they achieve the Flow state, which is characterized by feelings of being “in the zone” and “losing all track of time.”
It’s hard, if not impossible, to lose all track of time when you’re scheduled within an inch of your life. It’s also hard — at least in Linda Stone’s experience and mine — to give full attention to one task when you feel that your task list is out of control and running your life.
Task List Zero?
Part of the reason all this strikes a nerve is that I’ve been working on a long post titled “Task List Zero.” It’s my effort to translate Merlin Mann’s insights from his Inbox Zero to my own ridiculous, Rube Goldberg-like to-do lists.
Irony of ironies, I haven’t been able to focus on that post, work my way through it, even figure out if the concept makes any sense . . . because, what with the press of time and my many obligations, I haven’t given the idea my full attention.
But knowing the problem is half the battle, yes? Stay tuned.
Do you manage your time? Or your attention?
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Related posts:
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* Here’s the part of Stone’s article that gives me pause:
We think we know what attention is. In fact, today’s dictionary will tell us it’s the “concentration of the mental powers upon an object.” This definition assumes our attention can effectively be everywhere, all the time. We haven’t always thought of attention this way.
In 1890, when the psychologist, William James, gave a definition of attention, he described it as, “taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought… It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.”
James’s definition is clearly superior because it’s fuller and subtler (and I’m a sucker for a William James quote anyway). But I can’t make any sense of Stone’s analysis of today’s dictionary definition. How does “concentration of the mental powers upon an object” imply that attention can “be everywhere, all the time”? Wouldn’t it tend to imply the opposite, i.e. that attention focuses on . . . “an object”?
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(Photo by Elvert Barnes.)
Category: The business brain, The working life12 Comments so far
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Ok, I have to say that I’m focusing on the list part of this post rather than the attention part, sorry! I just questioned whether my ever-lengthening to-do list was really helping anything………after losing my Remember The Milk window in Gmail and then forgetting to login in to RTM for a day, I realized that the list isn’t very important. It actually stresses me out more than anything and if something is important enough to be on a to-do list, I write it down, simple as that. I’m then able to focus on one task at a time, without the HUGE list glaring at me from the corner.
I agree with you that scheduling yourself to within an inch of your life is not the answer. But I think that your question (i.e., do you manage your time or your attention?) elides a more fundamental issue: how do we decide what to work on? And similarly, how do we learn to say no?
Anyone who works on an assembly line knows that there’s a finite amount of work that can be done each day, based on the cycle time of the production process. My wife, who is a doctor, works on an assembly line, too: there’s a finite number of procedures that she can do each day. There’s no question about saying no to additional demands, because without more resources — better and faster machines, more operating rooms, etc. — they’ve reached the limit of their capacity.
This mindset is entirely different from that of the knowledge worker. Without clearly visible constraints, we somehow assume that we can cram more work into the same number of hours each day. But this assumption is patently false. The truth is that we have limits, too; they’re just not as visible or objectively measurable.
Why do we stupidly refuse to choose among our options? Why can’t we say no to the next project, the next long blog post (ahem, Tim), the next corporate initiative? If we bitch about distractions, why do we find it so difficult to disconnect from email, IM, or Twitter for a few hours?
Manage time? Manage attention? Why not recognize that there are limits to what can be done in a finite amount of time, and choose the most important tasks accordingly?
this is a spiritual lesson, making its way in to the business world
faith and trust in life via your intuition gets you to a place where you KNOW everything you need comes at the right place and time.
biggest challenge? letting go of fear
enjoy. the ashram has come to you!
Kate - I’ve tried and abandoned various technologically enabled to-do lists. Probably they work wonders for some people, but for myself, the challenges are inside me, and not (so far, at least) addressable by even the cleverest to-do functionality. My mind works in all kinds of branching chains, and I’m an easy mark when it comes to jumping into new projects before old ones are finished. THESE are the things I have to deal with, not the technological convenience of this or that computer-based widget.
Dan - Yes, yes to all of this. (Well, in a small moment of self-defense, I’d note that writing blog posts is a key part of my paying job, but your point there is well-taken, too.) I particularly like what you say about our limits as knowledge workers. We HAVE limits, but we don’t ACT like it, and I think this comes from our inability or unwillingness to process the results of our actions. The factory worker or the surgeon can SEE the results of the assembly-line processes: so many Fords turned out in a day, so many hernia repairs, etc. But knowledge workers, I think, often have no real idea of what they do in a day, or how they would measure their progress. Maybe this is why we have too many meetings and send too many e-mails: these are ways that we can seem busy to ourselves, and therefore justify our efforts.
It’s harder, and much subtler, to pull back, analyze the work as a whole, figure out the desired outcomes, and genuinely change our behaviors to adapt to what we find out. But it’s what we have to do — just as you say — if we want to direct our attention to the activities that need it most.
gregorylent - Guilty as charged. I believe that we often try to divorce our “selves” from our work, i.e. we try to make it into something purely mental, like a chess problem. (Check out the picture connected to this post.) But great chess players will tell you that chess is more than an exercise in pure calculation: it ALSO requires mental toughness and emotional commitment. Certainly, for some of the greats, even chess has a spiritual dimension as well, if they play with a sense that they are destined to be great chess players (or destined to enjoy chess more than others do). We bring all of ourselves to work - mind, body, spirit, emotions, preconceptions, etc. - and we’re much better served to act like it than to pretend it’s not happening.
Tim, I totally agree about the need to marry, not divorce, the spiritual and business. So often I edit or even withhold my comments for fear of not connecting with my audience since my reactions often gravitate toward the spiritual influences involved.
To me, that’s where you have to start to *really* solve the problems of business, of productivity, of success, because the problems of business are really just the problems of people - how we work, how we work together, what drives us, what holds us back, etc.
Look at this blog for one OF MANY examples — much of it talks about how we ACT, how we THINK, how we PERCEIVE the world or reality. I think the biggest problem may be the skewed perception we have of the word, at least in our culture, where it has a heavy “religion” sheen to it. As long as we don’t examine and correct this and similar detrimental misconceptions (did I just use a redundant adjective?) in ourselves, we’ll continue to want to keep them separate.
And I think as long as, or to the extent that we try to keep “spiritual” and “business” separate, we will continue to ask ourselves why some answers keep eluding us.
wow, i am impressed with the comments of tim and chris, it is not easy to use the “spiritual” word in many parts of our culture … but it is a need and will turn out to be good business in the very near future … change is flowing ..
and from the art side, if you have even five minutes to watch this soprano on charlie rose talk about her commitment to her work and craft, you will be totally inspired, even if your work is coding!
http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2007/10/09/2/a-conversation-with-natalie-dessay
it is fabulous
Chris and gregorylent — Thanks for the good comments.
I think there are a couple of *good* reasons we balk at the use of “spiritual” in the workplace:
1. Vanishingly few of us would LIKE to be introduced to someone else’s *religious* views in the workplace, esp. if those views are supposed to influence us directly. “Religious” and “spiritual” aren’t really synonyms . . . but they’re often used that way.
2. Plenty of “spiritual” ideas are wishy-washy, feel-good, “New Age”-y, etc. in ways that put off hard-nosed businesspeople. If I’m a salesman with a big number to meet between now and next Thursday, I probably don’t have a lot of time for meditation, contemplation, or personal reflection on the job. I ought to be on the phone instead.
So much for the objections. What about the positives?
–We ARE real people and we DO bring our WHOLE selves into the office, whether we mean to or now. Often we repress key parts of ourselves there, and rightfully so. I don’t want to have conversations about my coworkers’ religions or political views or sexual practices or whatever when we’re in the office. But conversely it doesn’t do us any good to think that we’re job-executing machines when we get into the workplace — we’re still PEOPLE with all the strengths and weaknesses to which people are subject.
–In the long haul, management is well served to make sure that the people in a company have room for various facets to shine. This is why smart companies do things, small or large, to improve quality of life. When people work in an environment that’s basically friendly, job stresses don’t turn into unmanageable emotional stresses. When they’re encouraged to work on projects in ways that reflect their own creativity, passion, etc., they tend to do better work, period.
I’m sure there are more benefits to considering the whole person when you’re managing an office.
Suggestions, folks?
You just about took the words right out of my mouth, Tim. I thought I’d covered the first point in my last response, but I must have edited it for (relative) brevity.
The second point is also crucial. I would go even further and say “plenty” is lowballing the estimate of “wishy-washy, feel good” ideas in this vein. Coupling just these two obstacles is formidable.
I’ll take your question, Tim, and marry it with your comment, gregorylent, “it is not easy to use the “spiritual” word in many parts of our culture,” by suggesting that we *look for* ways to overcome the obstacles we’ve cited and raise others’ comfort level with the term by using it ourselves peppered with, qualified by, or explained with more “comfortable” terms. Looking, too, at the spiritual side is the intelligent thing to do, and that’s the crux of the objection — if objectors can see that it is intelligent instead of “wishy-washy”, we’re on our way.
As to the benefits, I think it builds better problem-solvers, because I think you get better at identifying real problems instead of mistaking symptoms for them. With it, we make ourselves better “big picture”/”whole picture” thinkers.
the worst thing about the need for efficiency and chain of command and the limitation of the personal in any corporation is that it bleeds into customer relations … it is in fact why people hate corporations, because they are so efficient that they are completely impersonal. and why they are the last to figure out reality …. ford just now says, we better slow down on trucks, 2008 …. this is because so much humanness is suppressed that companies large and small really don’t fit into human culture … the dna simply isn’t developed.
i know you are a corporate blogger, and i don’t need a reply, but i will offer that the destruction we see in the american economy and international relations are the direct result of the lack of full human values being lived by enterprises.
strategic success will increasingly depend on the incorporation of wider human values.
gregorylent –
I think you touch on at least a couple of important themes here:
1. In my view, the best companies COMBINE a customer focus with efficiency and an effective chain of command. Ford’s problem, in my view, isn’t that it let efficiency overwhelm customer relations, but that it fell down in terms of BOTH efficiency and customer relations — possibly out of a slavish devotion to chain-of-command and (inefficient) standard operating procedures.
2. I agree with you that strategic success needs to incorporate a broader range of values. Companies have done great work, for example, by incorporating “green” values into their strategic planning. In many cases, they’ve even found that moves they were making for not-directly-financial reasons of P.R. or “community involvement” or “corporate social responsibility” in fact DID create direct financial benefits.
My own umbrella opinion here is that we’ve created too many false dichotomies in business, shutting down conversations that would allow people to bring much more of their selves to the table when they’re at work.
too many false dichotomies in international relations too.
i would like to read your thoughts on the future of business, in light of widening awareness. if you have already done this, please link me.
could be a good too for showing hoover’s forward thinking as well :-).
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