Monday, July 1, 2024

Stop Thinking and Pay Attention

Every company and every manager wants to increase productivity. Constant access to information and the expectations to do more with less is overwhelming the workforce. People are easily distracted at work. Attention management allows managers and employees to increase their productivity as well as their personal job satisfaction.  

Attention management increases the ability to focus attention and can be done at the individual and organizational level. Managers are encouraged to deal with their own attention problems before trying to influence employees in their organization. In order to understand attention management, people must be aware of where they focus most of their attention. Most experts divide attention into four different areas or zones. While the names may be different, the ideas are the same. 

The advice to “stop thinking” may seem counterintuitive to attention management. Many people, however, are overthinking everything and focused on the wrong ideas. When we constantly think, we do not pay attention to what is really going on around us. Our feelings control how and what we think. If we think that something is boring, bad, or a waste of time, we tend to give it less attention. For example, people are less likely to pay attention during a meeting if they believe it will not be productive. The ability to pay attention allows people to better connect with the world around them, better process their emotions, and organize the way they process cognitively

Until next time ...


 




Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

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