Focus

Daniel Goleman, renowned Psychologist and Emotional Intelligence pioneer, describes focus as the “hidden driver of excellence”. Goleman’s new book is about focus and the brain systems involved in training our attention. He claims that leaders need to be adept at three varieties of focus.  “The first is self-awareness, and the ability to manage your own emotion; the second is the awareness of other people; and the third is an outer focus, an awareness of broader organizational needs.  Leaders need all three types in balance to be effective.”

Goleman suggests that it is concentration that drives superior performance. After countless studies in many areas Goleman claims: “The data is showing us that the ability to pay attention well—in the right way at the right time—is absolutely critical to top performance.”

Our attention is under siege as the level of distraction in our lives has never been greater. The demands of our work lives and personal relationships have become more and more transactional and the expectation of fast paced, urgent communication exchanges continues to escalate. This changing dynamic pushes us all into a mode of multitasking.

Multitasking has become the norm.  Where it used to be reserved for times of high volume or peaks in our workload, multitasking is now the standard manner of approaching both personal and work tasks.

If you are thinking that your ability to multitask is a strength, you might want to think again.  Like Goleman, Travis Bradberry, best-selling author and contributor at Inc.com favors focus over multitasking in driving superior performance. In a recent post titled: The Real Harm in Multitasking, Bradberry discusses the pitfalls. He cites a Stanford study that supports his position that multitasking may not be all it is cracked up to be. He writes,

 "Stanford researchers compared groups of people based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance. They found that heavy multitaskers--those who multitask a lot and feel that it boosts their performance--were actually worse at multitasking than those who like to do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another."

The researchers measured all subjects' efficiency when multitasking and found it was less productive than doing a single thing at a time. More startling, they found that multitaskers cannot pay attention, recall information, or switch from one job to another as well as those who complete one task at a time.

Multitasking reduces your efficiency and performance because your brain is wired to focus on a single thing at a time. When you try to do two things at once, your brain simply lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully, according to Bradberry.

Additionally, Bradberry shares that “research also shows that, in addition to slowing you down, multitasking lowers your IQ. A study at the University of London found that participants who multitasked during cognitive tasks experienced IQ score declines that were similar to what they'd expect if they had smoked marijuana or stayed up all night. IQ drops of 15 points for multitasking men lowered their scores to the average range of an 8-year-old child.”

The takeaway here is to change your definition of “effective”. Instead of trying so hard to keep up with the chaos, slow it down, reflect, plan, focus and shine!

 Your future success may depend on it! 

Image credit: imgkid.com