Why You Can't Focus? - High at work

An attention and focus crisis explained.

A deep dive into why our focus is fragmenting and how we can mitigate it.

Ever been stoned so good that it felt like your brain was being tickled?

Time moved slow, and you couldn't quite tell if the person talking to you was talking to you?

“According to a psychological experiment done by Hewlett Packard, we spend most of our time at work in a state similar or worse than a cannabis user.”

In other words, the person smoking weed at home is better off than you are at work.

Experiment

	​Activity	Result
Group A	​Work with no interruptions	​IQ NORMAL
Group B	Work with email and call interruptions	IQ DROPPED BY 10

Group B’s IQ dropped by 10 points.

If I smoked a blunt right now, my IQ would averagely drop by 5 points.

Meaning being interrupted has double the effect of smoking a blunt.

You’d much rather go to work high.

Glenn Wilson, a psychologist from King's College, London University found that the compulsion to reply to each new message led to a constant change of brain direction which tired and slowed down the brain.

I was shocked too.

On the bright side, she affirms that it is a temporary distraction effect - not a permanent loss of IQ.

Meaning that we can change and improve this.

From the results, we learn the importance of attention and focus regarding the work we do.

Granted, it is becoming harder and harder to focus.

I remember being at work and finding it extremely difficult to fully focus on one thing.

My reflexive response was to go into ‘self-criticism mode’

‘I’m weak’ ‘I’m not efficient’ ‘I’m lazy’ ‘my mind is not strong enough to resist distraction’

The author of Stolen Focus, Johann Hari, expressed the same concern, as I'm sure many of us relate to that.

And I learned that this fragmentation of focus is bearing on all of us.

We are all experiencing a diminishing effect on our attention.

Johann Hari, author of –Stolen focus- talks about the changes in our world affecting our ability to form and sustain deep focus and attention.

This, he calls the attention crisis.

Causes of the attention crisis

#1 Distractions

I remember previously taking 2 hours to do a 30 min task, simply because my attention was consistently distracted by; Social media, Phone calls, E-mail, Snack breaks, Co-workers, and noisy environments.

Now I'm pretty strict with my attention and focus. My phone is usually off or in another room and I openly tell those around me not to interrupt.

True to that, my productivity and presence have improved staggeringly.

We have limited attentional resources in terms of capacity and duration, so it is important to manage the attentional resources effectively.

Professor Michael Posner found that if you got distracted from your primary task, it took the brain 23 minutes to fully focus back.

This means that we are not only taking longer to do a particular task, but also diminishing the task's quality by allowing distractions.

#2 Multitasking/Switching tasks

I remember at my previous job, I would always ensure that I was doing something during meetings. I had to get some work in.

Douglas Merrill, a contributor to Forbes Magazine talks about a similar experience when working at google.

The workers would always be working during meetings.

Later, they set a policy to have some meetings as 'no laptops go zone.'

Because a majority of them, like me would 'multitask' during these meetings and end up missing crucially important things.

It is a fundamental fact of the brain, that you can only focus consciously on one thing at a time.

Most of us think we can do multiple things at once.

We all want to be productivity ninjas, so we open the 20 tabs(guilty) and try to do as many things we can at a go.

I mean, we've seen our mums do it?

They cook, listen to us and text our dads simultaneously.

So how comes it works well for our mums and not for us?

It's because multitasking works on activities that do not require our conscious attention.

When it comes to activities that entail cognitive effort and a deeper level of focus, multitasking not only diminishes our output, but also sells us short.

#3 Poor sleeping habits

"I run on 3 hours of sleep a day" or "I've barely slept" have become common bragging rights among many people.

It almost seems like it's a competition of who worked the hardest and slept the least.

In truth, a lack of sleep diminishes our productivity, learning, memory, and insight.

It impairs focus, attention, and decision-making.

You are of little good with little sleep.

Frantzen says that: 'The brain is designed for both activity and relaxation,“ The brain is made to go into a less active state, which we might think is wasteful; but memory consolidation takes place in this state.'

#4. Being overwhelmed/Stressed

Much like a DOS (Denial of Service attack) – if you want to make a website crash, you stress and overwhelm it by allowing many users to use it simultaneously.

We have all been there, when we feel like we can't think straight because our mind is on overload.

It's not news that attention, focus, decision making and in general productivity is difficult to sustain when stressed or overwhelmed

When we are stressed, our bodies produce large amounts of the hormone cortisol.

Cortisol disrupts the normal workings of the prefrontal cortex.

Our prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that allows for intense focus when operating at full capacity, however, when disrupted, it causes a staggering loss of concentration, decision making, focus, and work quality.

Effects of poor attention and a lack of focus

This is all sad and shocking but what is the bigger effect Phyian?

So what if I can’t pay attention and I act like I’m high at work, what difference does it make?

Well, let’s look at some of the adverse long-term effects of our inability to focus.

1) Failure to achieve our goals

Say my goal is to write one book by the end of 2022

If I'm unable to focus my attention on writing one page a day towards it, that adversely diminishes my ability to achieve my goal.

If yours is to learn about SEO in a month, how will you do that if you can't focus on one part of the coursework?

If we can’t focus and pay attention, our ability to achieve our goals across the board diminishes.

2) Feeling constantly lost- becoming a stump of yourself

I'm currently reading The Power of Now and I have so much to share on the Power of the present moment. Do stay tuned!

Our inability to focus and pay attention automatically diminishes our inability to become or stay present.

A lot of us are living as stumps of ourselves, a blur of who we are, and lost in our heads and phones.

Our consciousness has been hijacked by distractions i.e social media and we seem to be unable to make sense of our own life,

We are constantly bombarded with distractions and we are in a constant state of 'Who am I" "What am I doing?"

Johanna Hari describes it as having our lives atrophied into 60 seconds and three-minute chunks. Hence having many of us feel a nagging sense of displacement.

It becomes difficult to build meaning and a sense of direction from a state of distraction.

Cheer up though, your positive fairy is here with some solutions!

Changes we can make to improve our focus

1) Make distractions harder to pursue.

We learn this from James Clear on atomic habits.

He tells us that none of us have a discipline beyond the other, we just need to make our habits easier to do and our distractions harder to pursue.

Personal example; I was only able to successfully quit social media for 3 years by uninstalling the applications.

Put your phone off and in another room, move to a quit space in the office.

Create systems that support your goals and habits.

2) Do one thing at a time/Avoid multitasking

Be easy on yourself, you only take a breath at a time.

Allow yourself to work the same way.

3) Block out times for uninterrupted work and make that clear.

I had a colleague who would not answer if you called him when in the focus of his deep work.

If he did look up, you could tell by his face that he didn't want to be interrupted.

Raise a finger, put up a white flag or mention it beforehand, but make sure you block out at least 3 to 5 hours for uninterrupted deep work.

3) Practice mindfulness

When we hear mindfulness, we think of silent retreats, Buddhist and monk steps, relinquishing our social media among many other theories.

I'm here to tell you; that is all bull.

Mindfulness is simple and accessible to you and me.

In simple words, it is the awareness of your surroundings.

Many may not understand beyond the level of the mind, the power of being present, but I hope that in your seeking to be more mindful, you may experience the power of the now.

In regards to focus, being more mindful has been scientifically linked to an improvement of wellness and thus a stronger ability to focus.

4) Better sleep

All I will say is;

You are just as deserving of rest, as you are of success.

5) Eat better

Here is a list of some foods that could help with concentration.

I made a mental note that some of these foods are very similar to foods that help with better skin.

I hope you enjoyed it, let me know if you have any questions.

Best of luck in reshaping your focus!