Who Stole My Focus?

I was listening to Johann Hari the other day talking about our ability to focus being increasingly destroyed and it made me think about my own situation and how much control we actually have over it.  Increasingly I find it almost impossible to watch a tv programme without (at worst) doing something else like playing a game on my phone at the same time or (at best) fast forwarding to get to a good bit.  When did I become so impatient or lose the inability to focus and, how much of this do I consider a problem I have no control over, or is it something I can influence instead?

I look at the world of social media we live in as well as the work environment and I think the world is almost speeding up beyond my ability to keep up.  Now don’t laugh, but I remember getting my first personal computer at work.  I was in the RAF at the time and very conscious that this technological advance saw the demise of the typing pool.  Those lovely ladies that graciously and patiently altered our letters after we had reviewed our own work, only to change our minds what we wanted to write. I remember those letters being folded and slid into envelopes (that felt thick and secure) and popped into the outbox to be posted. The pace of life felt much slower even if the sense of responsibility wasn’t any less because of it.

With the advent of the internet, the work environment has sped up beyond all measure. Open plan offices, created to increase communication (or was it to save money?) and all the sounds that came with it, I personally found quite tough as I get distracted by sounds easily. My productivity on some days dramatically reduced as concentrating on long documents, for me, is really difficult unless I have silence. Is it just me that throws an evil glare across the room at someone permanently rustling in their crisp bag, their fingers moving from packet to mouth with their eyes glazed, fixed to the screen? Hats off to those that can work with music as a backdrop – I really wish I could! The last 18 months, working from home, have been a godsend (for me at least) and I think I have been more productive as a result. I imagine there are people screaming at me now, saying ‘you have no idea!  I’ve had my kids home the entire time and it was impossible!’ But I believe communication via technology has been invaluable in keeping the economic wheel turning and enabling us to have some connection at least with colleagues, family and friends.

Social media platforms such as Facebook messenger have enabled me to keep in contact with people who don’t live anywhere near me, but Johann says that the real intention of the sites is not to facilitate direct conversation and that if we think these mega moguls have our vested interests at heart, we should perhaps think again. We are he says, “just business,” and what they want us to do is to keep scrolling so we can see the advertisements. If we stopped to actually set up direct communication with someone, they wouldn’t earn a thing. 

Well, they must hate me then, because I obviously wear blinkers.  I have only once been persuaded to buy something directly from an advert, OK twice, if you include the Wonder Bra (showing my age here folks so I’ll move rapidly on). I’m not an advertisers’ dream. I didn’t even know that shopping channels still existed for goodness sake! I am not easily persuaded and am naturally sceptical. I hate it when I see something I have searched for on the internet, suddenly pop us on Facebook or Instagram as something I might be interested in.  But I have learned that many are not like me; they do succumb to the advertisements and that makes the mega moguls very happy.  

But what has all this got to do with losing focus? Well, more and more we are being watched, surveyed if you will, for our likes and dislikes. AI is currently being developed to understand our emotions based on our facial expression via the camera (another good reason to turn the damn thing off, other than a bad hair day!) and to monitor how we write our personal e mails and correspondence so that we can be presented with products in a way that resonates with us. It’s bizarre because in NLP terms I build rapport with other people by modelling how they communicate to enable them to feel more comfortable. That is in a real human to human space but now technology is doing that too!

Coming back to my own point though about focus. I love to shout about the fact I can multi- task – fist pump, go me!  However, if I’m focusing on one task and I receive a text or a pop up on my e mails and read it, in essence my focus moves elsewhere.  Then when I go back to the original task, I have to refocus which wastes time. So, how many times do I do that a day?  Switching from one thing to the next, focusing and refocusing. If, as studies have shown, it takes 20 minutes to recover and refocus each time, how productive am I really being if I am doing that at work? Add that to a world where emails have replaced letter writing and other forms of communication, including actually talking to each other for heavens’ sake (come on, I bet you’ve emailed someone person sat right next to you or at least a few desks away) and is it really a surprise that our focus might been misplaced?

So focused is our attention on the little screens that now it appears some of us need a cage to put our phones in, where we can set a timer to keep it locked away, until we can grasp it in our fingertips once more.  Seriously, we need cages for our phones?  I think for many that might be seen as a fantastic parenting solution when simply asking children to hand over their property is like asking Russia not to invade the Ukraine, but back to my original point, I am bereft if I leave the house without it.  My phone has become my most prized possession; I use it to pay bills, monitor transactions, talk to my friends, reach my audience on social media, access my bank etc. etc. But if you looked at people walking around and they all had their notifications on full volume, how overwhelming might that feel? I am reminded of the advert in the cinema that visually shows this on the screen with hundreds of people walking around.  It is enthralling that we can cope with that amount of information at any one time but how does this barrage of information affect us?

The more technologically advanced we become the more apparently disconnected we become from each other, or are we?  I saw a picture some time ago comparing people at a bus stop staring at their phones to one taken many years ago, showing people reading their newspapers. Is it really any different? Well, the pace was different.  You could focus on an article without a notification pinging through or feeling the urge to check the message that just appeared on your watch, or, betting bored as you can’t get your fix on Insta so you visit snapchat or Facebook or whatever instead. But that image shows that we were no more connected to each other at the bus stop reading newspapers than those on their phones. Well, instead of moaning how life was great before all this technological stuff became such a pain in the ass, maybe there could also be an acceptance that we are not what we once were.  As a human race we are continually developing and if we want something different, surely, we have the choice to change something at an individual level, rather than wanting the world to change around us?

So, what can we do about it; why do we need to change and how can we do it?  Like anything that requires long lasting change, it has to be sustainable. Take dieting for example.  If I was to say, eat nothing but eggs for 2 weeks, it’s likely that the first few days are manageable, almost exciting (has anyone else transposed it with the word eggciting? No?  Just me then) but we can’t stick to it for 2 weeks.  Even if we did, we would probably be back to our old habits in a matter of days after stopping the egg fest.

I see technology as a good thing. I can google practically anything, including tutorials, that have both saved me time and money.  I can book a holiday myself online (ummmmm, OK, pre-Covid, I used to be able to).  I can pay bills and transfer money to where I need to without the need to set foot into a bank. In sum I can be productive elsewhere because I am not wasting time doing things that used to take a lot of my personal time.

I do believe I am connected with people I would have otherwise lost contact with and, as I sit here today, I can connect with my husband living in a different country.  So, the issue really is, if we are really so worried about losing focus, what exactly are we going to do about it?  How will our lives improve if we do make a change?  If we can see no real benefit, why do it? If we are happy with the speed life is and feel energised, why slow down? It’s a personal thing.  I choose not to act on adverts, but if, like me, you notice that you can’t even concentrate on a TV programme without getting easily distracted and then feel dissatisfied as a result, maybe we could make a small change, like turning the phone upside down and on silent, to find a way back to enjoying life in the moment. After all, I might have lost my focus, but I haven’t lost my right to choose, have I?

I don’t think I have the monopoly on tips, rather they are an accumulation of my thoughts based on working with clients and doing my own research but here are some questions/ideas:

1.     What is it you would like to change about your ability to focus and why? Once you bring it to your conscious awareness you can act on it.

2.     What is within your influence to enable that change? E.g. if you want to stop all e mail traffic in your company, you have zero influence, but it you want to be less distracted by something flying in, you will have some options

3.     What is it that makes you want to move from one thing to another, just because your attention is diverted? Now that you know that, what could you do instead?

4.     Where do you feel overwhelm the most? It doesn’t have to be just technology. Rather than seeing it as one overwhelming issue, pick it apart and identify the most pressing element.  Use item 2 to make the change

5.     Create a new habit, starting small, that you can stick to every day. You can take some ideas from James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits. Those that talk about changing habits talk about the number of days it can take to embed a new one anywhere from 21 days upwards.  However, I would disagree, because I’ve seen habits change just by working on the subconscious mind pretty much instantaneously.  It really is about what feels the right approach for you.

Sorry for stealing your focus for 3-4 mins but if you do recognise you find it difficult to focus, what exactly are you going to choose to do about it?