Manage Your Attention, Not Your Time
This month's Gifted Leaders e-Newsletter features an article from the Mindful Blog. With so many stimuli competing for attention, any hope for making it through the day without our brains feeling like scrambled eggs rests on being more conscious of how we manage our attention.
Highlights from the Article
No one manages time. You manage your attention.
Attention is the basic resource or energy you have to invest in your present experience. You are what you attend to. It’s that simple.
Unfortunately, education has largely emphasized skills for thinking and underemphasized, or ignored altogether, the skills of attending, seeing, and perceiving (let alone feeling).
Management philosopher Peter F. Drucker understood that going forward truly educated (and effective) people “will need trained perception fully as much as analysis.” In a quickly-changing world, effective people will need to clearly see as much as clearly think. The starting point of this is managing attention and focus. So many stimuli compete for attention, any hope for effectiveness rests on being more conscious of what you attend to.
It’s important to make a priority around managing your attention. The more you do that, the better able you will be to stay true to your goals, perform toward your best, and engage the world in a meaningful way.
One of the best ways to stay focused and limit distractions is to name your priorities.
We don’t name them frequently enough. All too often, we allow the momentum of whatever we’ve been doing to make our decisions for us. Habits are great as long as they’re serving our true intentions or a situation’s real needs. Otherwise, we wake up and go through the motions while missing the important things.
So, the first and most essential step is knowing what your intentions are. Ask yourself: “What’s vital for me to put energy on right now?” or “Is this the best use of my energy?” These questions can help clarify what’s essential. Intentions also help to say “no” to the less important (but perhaps more urgent).
Clarifying intentions brings greater direction to how we invest our energy. And, in the long run, where we put our attention is central to a sense of meaning and purpose.
Read the article here.
The Gifted Perspective
The practice of choosing ONE WORD to intentionally live into throughout the year is an elegantly simple way to provide focus and assist you with managing your attention.
Would you be willing to accept the Gifted Leaders’ ONE WORD Challenge and choose a single word to serve as your focus for 2017?
We can assist you and your team in clarifying your priorities, limiting distractions, and being more effective in all you do. Contact us today about individual leadership coaching or our Teams That Talk™ coaching approach!
