We all know this. It is no longer the knowledge economy, but the attention economy. The big tech companies all have one object; keep and hold your attention. How many eyeballs to do the get and for how long. And most of us think that it is a good trade off to not have to pay for social media. But we are paying, with the most valuable thing we have, our attention, our time, our life. It is no accident. These companies know that our attention is the most valuable thing there is, and they are working hard to capture and hold it.
If we recognized it was so valuable, would we give it away so unintentionally? Or would we be sure to give it completely to things that matter most to us? Did you know our attention is so powerful that it changes the effectiveness of a workout? While weight training, if you focus on the contraction of your muscle, you get better results than if you put your attention on the movement of the weight. What Richard Moss said, “The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention,” is absolutely true. It is not $1M. It is not tuition to a fancy college. It is not a promotion. It is not “listening” to their presentation while you scan your emails. (I know how bad it feels to be the one presenting and being the one asking a catch up question because I was not paying attention in that situation.) It is not even time. It is your full, undivided attention. This is the way to really be with another human being. It is also the most effect way to be truly productive too. (Read The Myth of Multitasking, by Dave Crenshaw, for more on that.) Giving your full attention to the task at hand is the way to be the most effective getting that task done and the only way to get into the flow state which is also more fun.
So how do you give your full attention to the person or task at hand? With people, I love the line from The Avatar movie, “I see you.” If I have that feeling of connection with the person I am giving my attention to, I know it is my full attention. For people and tasks, use one of the many focus/DoNotDisturb functions on your phone and watch and computer. For tasks, give yourself a block of time, 20-60 minutes where you won’t do anything else. If your task requires looking something up on the web, set a 5-minute timer to bring you back if you got sucked into that black hole.
Especially on this Easter weekend, give your full attention to what matters most, your family and friends. And when you are with them, ask “Do I SEE them?” If not, put the other thoughts out of your mind set your phone in another room, take off your smart watch, and be with those most important people fully.
Have a great Easter,
Art
