Life is the study of attention. This is proven in multiple studies, but the key is in choosing where to put your attention. That marrying of attention to what we value most creates a concentration of power! Wherever you place your attention, you will improve.
Let me state that there is no such thing as multi-tasking; it is just shifting your attention back and forth, which is suboptimal for concentration. As a plebe/freshman at the Naval Academy, I learned this lesson from a study skills Professor I was directed to see when my first set of grades was in the danger zone. Plebe year at the Naval Academy is designed to be stressful, and there are multiple requirements outside of studies, some essential and some not so essential. The Professor gave me several key tips to improve my effectiveness in studying. That advice and a couple of other techniques developed into powerful habits, and my grades went from a 2.05 to a 3.57, and if I was true to those habits, I had great grades. I learned to concentrate the power of attention and importance.
Today we have many more distractions. We carry the worldwide web, our favorite movies, and a radio in our pockets. Successful, effective people know that time is a poor metric and succeed because they get more important things done. The key in doing so is separating the urgent from the important. A ringing phone is urgent, but we don’t know if it is vital until we answer. In the tyranny of the urgent, we lose track of the vital task that will pay high dividends. Understanding this relationship of importance to urgency allows us to set priorities. People spend up to 50% of their time at work on unimportant urgencies and often completely ignore important/not-urgent tasks with a high payoff. And this is at work; we are much less effective at home.
So this week, take the pen and paper out and write down some tasks at home or at work that are important/not-urgent that you have been procrastinating and identify some not-important/not-urgent tasks you can discontinue. Now take action!
