Keep your eye on the...

Some of us are better at remaining focused, if only because we have to make critical decisions, quickly.

I’m writing this because I sat down to define my personal professional goals for 2008 – and found myself checking emails.

I refocus on my original task. My wandering eyes spotted a book I want to recommend to a coaching client. I fully intended to do one thing, and ended up doing another.

Interesting isn’t it how easily even the most experienced of us can be distracted. What is it in us that makes some of us less able to concentrate, to focus? Has it anything to do with age? Should we know better because of experience? And how can we avoid lack or loss of focus and worse, find ourselves procrastinators?

I think of a little boy I saw having great fun sledging at beautiful Monti Sibillini in the Italian mountains during the Christmas and New Year break. On holiday there, I watched people of all ages sledging on a range of equipment – from black plastic bag
(improvised but not recommended), to tea-tray-like beginner’s sledge, to the more professional kit with brakes either side and many go-faster stripes.

This little lad - Guiseppe - looked about five and had clearly got his sledging down to a fine art. He was fearless, whizzing down and weaving as if in a slalom.

Others young and older were tumbling, and one wipe-out looked pretty painful. Guiseppe made it to the bottom with a flourish and after a quick grin at family and friends, got out of the sledge and pulled it back up to the top. He was totally focused, having too much fun to be distracted by fear, crying contemporaries, cheering onlookers.

I asked his father if Guiseppe had been sledging for a long time – but no, this was only his second attempt. How did he get to be so good, then?

‘What he did right’, said his dad, ‘was really listen when he started. I just told him to keep leaning forward (that’s what maintains control – lean back and you’ve lost it); to go easy on the brakes (or you’re in a wipe-out); and to watch he didn’t go into anyone else.’

Guiseppe’s reward for all this focus wasn’t ice cream or chocolate. After an hour or so of serious sledging, he realised that he could stop using one brake rather than both. What that gave him was the most magnificent hand-brake turn you’ve ever seen on a sledge. And a huge smile at the thrill of his achievement!

I thought of fearless, determined, successful Guiseppe, and what his father said. The lad had succeeded because he was too young to know fear, to anticipate danger. Thanks to his father he was informed by pretty simple rules…

Lean forward. Brake with a light touch. Watch where you’re going.

For people who find it difficult to stay attentive and focused, I think these are useful watchwords to help stay on the straight and narrow.

Some of us are better at remaining focused, if only because we have to make critical decisions, quickly. I read that a Red Arrows lead pilot has a decision to make every 20 seconds. I wager it’s unlikely he or she mulls over what to have for tea when instructing the unit to fly in close formation at 400mph.

On terra firma, wandering attention can cost the average office worker as much as two hours from the working day, according to research (see New Scientist, December 2007). Apparently it is easier to concentrate on a task if it is complicated enough to force your brain to concentrate. And it is physically impossible to prevent our eyes following a stimulus that enters the visual field.

Unfortunately for us, the working environment is packed with all sorts of distractions competing for our attention. Email checking must be one of the most common - for this we can blame only ourselves. Ringing telephones, people calling across the office, and internal distractions such as hunger or stress take their toll. Once distracted it can take us up to 25 minutes to get back to what we were doing.

We find distraction attractive because it’s more fun that the job we’re supposed to be doing! But the issue has more important implications when lack of focus goes unchecked and develops into a worse condition: procrastination.

Focus provides direction and objectives - ‘lean forward; brake with a light touch; watch where you’re going’. Realistically these alone won’t stop us procrastinating if we are of that type, or simply determined to tempt fate with purposeful delay and dawdle.
I continue to be distracted from writing my 2008 objectives, and so I read there are three key types of procrastinators:

‘Adrenalin junkies’… thrill-seekers who love a euphoric last minute rush
‘Decision dodgers’… ‘if I don’t make a decision I can’t be responsible for it’
‘Fear evaders’… people who avoid their fear of failure - or of success; they worry what others think of them and hate to be criticised for lack of ability

Mmm. Now that has got me thinking… I’ll leave you with the fruits of my unexpected endeavours! See overleaf my suggestions on how to tackle the challenge of focus and procrastination, and also some inspirational grist should times get tough!

Meantime, I’m off to find a robust tea tray and some snow…

I wish you a successful, prosperous and focused 2008!