If you are looking to ‘do’ the focus, focus, focus thing day in day out and getting stressed, you are not alone. The over-emphasis on focusing on tasks to achieve daily goals has become boring. Useful but boring. What can be another, simpler way? Is there even such a thing.
The answer unravels by asking ourselves, what is/are the thing/s that detracts us from focusing. More commonly referred to as distractions, we all succumb to its seductive, insidious embrace to varying degrees and once we realize it, it often leaves us annoyed with ourselves, embarrassed, anxious about the irreversible loss of time. If you see the meanings of the word distraction from Merriam-webster you’ll know why.
A state of wildly excited activity or emotion
The act or activity of providing pleasure or amusement
A state of mental uncertainty
With the lethal combination of mobile phones and internet we can see how much of wild excitation, wild emotion, pleasurable activity and amusement is within arm’s reach…nay in our palms.
Contrast this to the meaning of the word “goal“: Again Merriam-Webster: “something that one hopes or intends to accomplish”. That’s it. Lets check out “task“: ‘a piece of work that needs to be done regularly’. Can there be more boring definition!!
Contrast these two words even when combined, with ‘distraction‘ and you can clearly see who wins.
There is no way that humans would naturally gravitate to focus on tasks when we are naturally pre-disposed to seeking the dopamine rush of distractions.
So is it hopeless? Maybe not..
In Machine learning, much time and effort is spent upfront in ‘cleaning’ the data. Fancifully called exploratory data analysis(EDA). In terms of actual coding one can argue that more than half the overall time taken to develop a machine learning(ML) model, could get consumed just in EDA. One of the major outcomes of doing this is to help the algorithm know what to focus on. For making this happen we study a whole bunch of ‘distractions’ (columns of attributes/dependant variables/themes etc.) very minutely sometimes and then and only then, are we able to eliminate it. There’s a moral here for humans. i.e. we need to study our own distractions and get conscious of it first, before we can more easily and fluently train our mind, just as we train the ML model, on our boring ‘tasks’. The good news is: as in ML, this is a one time exercise.
So here are the 5 things:
Sit in a place. Compose yourself and make a long list of the things that you feel routinely distract you from achieving what you set out to achieve every day.
Study each item on this list and label them as WMC (within my control) or OMC (outside my control)
First look at the OMC labeled items and look at which of these are mitigatable. e.g. a loud colleague distracts. This is an OMC. So look to find a quiet room or a different desk/ area in your workplace to get the more important things done while that colleague is around. Plan to do this. Like this, systematically go down the list of OMCs and think up a mitigation for every OMCs on your list — consciously.
Look at your WMCs. We need to treat these variables with more nuance than OMCs. We give them categorical values 0-Stop, 1-Reduce. There is no 3rd category of Continue. Sorry. And you are the judge. If you categorized any WMC as 1 give yourself a meaningful and actionable handle to actually reduce it i.e. if you are given to watching korean serials on the sly endlessly, give yourself the pleasure of watching it for say 10 mins, and do it without guilt. A measured dose of distractions are good for our well-being. But also add a dis-incentive that it could take you upto 20 mins to shake-off the hangover thoughts. So budget for it. This means you’ll need to budget 10+20 i.e 30 mins time off for a 10 min permitted distraction.
Keep this list in a place you can refer to from time to time. More during the early ‘training’ phase. So you can iteratively arrive at a happy balance.
Here’s the interesting parallel. ML models too, are developed iteratively until the desired accuracy and outcomes are demonstrated. Once you train the model that way and test it, it will run exactly the way you trained it, in the real world. In a very disciplined and trustable way. Likewise for us humans. Once you try out the above 4 steps and tweak it day by day, you will get to a point where you have trained yourself to run your rest of the day smoothly. In a very disciplined and trustable way and for every day of the rest of your life.
And yeah, by the way, you’ll end up accomplishing your tasks alright. Without the cliched focus and consequent stress! Won’t hurt to try. Try it.
Give this approach a shot and share some of your OMCs and WMCs with the other readers and how you will master it.
Because trust plays a big role in your overall performance. Be it at work, at home with your loved ones or in any team sport.
One of 1 Cloud Hub’s greatest corporate values is trust. The other being integrity. Almost all successful companies have trust as a company value. While at HP, Trust is given and its for you to lose, at AWS for example, trust has to be earned. There’s a difference in the two approaches and that impacts behaviours and culture within the company.
While onboarding new employees at HP, I’d ask : “At HP Is trust given or is it to be earned?”. 90% would reply, its to be earned. Because that’s how the world behaves towards strangers. You have to earn someone’s trust. True but at HP, Bill and Dave Packard had the foresight and the opposite recommendation for HP’s employees. We trust our employees. It’s for them to lose.
So whats the diff:
In AWS’s case an employee would constantly be looking into earn everyone’s trust. i.e. you are off the trust boat and have to climb into it.
In HP’s case an employee would constantly be looking to not have people lose their trust. i.e. you are on the trust boat and need to ensure you don’t fall off.
Questions for you to answer and a fun self-assessment tool.
a. In which of these scenario are you like to be more open.
b. In which scenario do you think teamwork is likely to flourish
c. How and when would you ever know that now you have earned everyone’s trust in scenario 1.
d. In which scenario would you like your colleagues to be.
e. what kind of corporate cultures would the two spawn off. HP’s now almost an 80 year old organization and needs no proof point that this way of looking at trust is enduring and has worked
Make your choices and see how it changes the way you view your colleagues.
Before we go judging others here’s a way to judge yourself and raise your own bar.
One of the rare times the YouTube algorithm pushes something that is deeply interesting.
To say Robert O’Neil and his bunch of buddies up at SEAL are awesome, would be crass. Words cannot do justice to what he and his fraternity across the free world do every day to protect the vulnerable and the weak. If you need a refresher on what SEAL means, here’s some help.
For the benefit of some of you, who are in a rush, I’d not want you to miss out on the powerful learnings. Just remember as you read this: We are talking about a SEAL saying this. Here are some gems. There are many more hidden in the video like the one on fear. I’ll leave that for you to dig thru.
“Nobody wants to work for a jerk”. “I had a boss who said please and thank you for normal work, not all the time, but to let you know you’re part of the team” – People skills.
When morale is high the team will work harder”.
“The perfect plan only exists in the planning room, the moment you leave the room Murphy shows up and everything seems to change. Life is happening around you while you are planning this stuff and 95% of the plans that you worry about never happens any way. “What’s the worst that can happen” ” the helicopter could crash in the front yard” and it happened.”
“Know the difference between over-planning and being prepared” – Preparation over planning.
“Your initial reaction is the wrong reaction. Its important to take a second even if a second is all you have, to make and informed decision. I try to apply it every day.”
“Take emotion out of the decision making process”.
Pause to “look at What’s the problem and what’s the emotion I am associating with that problem and that’s enough time to make an informed decision”.
“Even in combat don’t react, do respond “
“You’re having a bad day or series of bad days and you say: “that’s it. I quit, am done”. You’re not having a bad life, You’re having a bad day. Take a rap off, time heals everything, it will get better”
“No matter what, we never quit”.
“Stress is a bag of bricks, which you choose to carry”.
“Stress is a choice. Just put the bag down”.
“When you are done saying what you’re saying”
– stop saying it.
“Never pass up the opportunity”
-to shut up.
“Time heals everything”
Know the vast difference between what you truly hold dear and everything else
“Push to talk – “
– i need you to think (so stop pushin’)
“You are about to go to war for the first time and your enemy is: all your doubts, all your fears and everyone you know back home who told you you were not good enough to do this”.
Keep your head down, keep moving forward and never quit and you will be just fine.
The one that resonated most with me:
“My life starts right now: Am as old as i have ever been, but i’m also as young as i will ever be”.
I know you will apply some of these immediately.
A SEAL is an extreme example of a person demonstrating #PEAKISM(TM) behaviours. Check out how much on your PEAK are you.
Best wishes.
Epilogue
If you do decide to watch the video, or, contributed to one of the 293,344 views including me who have watched it, you are bound to re-live some of the moments O’Neil describes. Like, ” There’s a big difference between saying good night and goodbye to your kids . . . knowing it may be the last time you’ll see them”. This is one of several poignant points in the video. Another is when he shares the reason why its worth taking the trouble to be a SEAL.
“We are not going for fame and we are not going for bravado. We are going for the single mom who dropped her kids off at elementary school on a Tuesday morning and then 45 minutes later she jumped to her death out of a skyscraper, because that was a better alternative than burning alive because it’s 2,500 degrees inside, and her last gesture of human decency, was to hold her skirt down so nobody could see her underwear, as she committed suicide. She didn’t want to do any of that. She wasn’t supposed to be in the fight. We’re supposed to fight that’s why we’re going.”
They find that higher calling to do it. The above anecdote teared me up. Enough said. I’ll let you find what resonates most with you.
Gurunath Hari is the author of “The 6 Dimensions, Overcome Presenteeism: Excel in work and Life”. He has over 25 years of corporate experience, including leadership and management roles. His working life started at the end of the pre-computer era and continues to the present ‘everything-mobile’ era. He with his mentor Sir Prof. Cary Cooper, invented the term PEAKISM – the opposite of presenteeism and absenteeism. The book became an Amazon best seller in 2016.
The kindle and hardcopy version of 6 Dimensions book is available at Amazon!!
The Indian Army is the world’s second-largest military force and is the world’s fifth-most powerful military.
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