Attention Residue: The Productivity Killer

Hello and welcome to the Curiosity Chronicle, a weekly podcast where I provide actionable ideas to help you build a high performing, healthy, wealthy life. Today's podcast is brought to you by AG1 by Athletic Greens my all in one daily supplement. Seriously, this stuff replaced an entire cabinet of supplements for me in one daily Scoop. There's a reason it's been a staple of my morning routine since 2011. To find out why, go to drinkag1.comsahil and and take advantage of a limited time offer. Now on to today's piece Attention Residue the Productivity Killer Albert Einstein was already an accomplished mathematician by the time he arrived at the ETH Institute in Switzerland in 1912. He had published many works, held professorships, and started to gain notoriety in his field, but few would know anything about him if not for the three year period from 1912 to 1915. It was during this time that he formulated his theory of General Relativity, which is widely considered to be the greatest scientific achievement of the 20th century. Albert Einstein devoted three years of his life to deep focus on the specific task of generalizing his theory of relativity to account for a pesky little thing called gravity. Bestselling author Cal Newport once we are most productive when we focus on a very small number of projects on which we can devote a large amount of attention. Einstein followed this principle. He didn't work on 10 things during this period. He directed all of his precious attention to the one thing that really mattered. Formulating a world changing math theory is probably a bit out of reach for most of us, but this principle on focused attention is one that we can all strive to apply to reach our individual potential. Well, here's a harsh your attention is more divided than ever, but there is something you can do about it. The Science of Attention Residue the concept of attention residue was first identified by University of Washington business professor Dr. Sophie LeRoy in 2009. In the original paper, Dr. LeRoy defines attention residue as the persistence of cognitive activity about a task A, even though one stopped working on task A and currently performs a task B. In other words, there is a cognitive switching cost to shifting your attention from one task to another. When your attention is shifted, there is a residue that remains with the prior task and impairs your cognitive performance on the new task. You may think your attention has fully shifted to the new task, but your brain has a lag. That lag has become even more prominent in the modern digital world where you carry and wear multiple devices and tools that constantly pull on your attention with their notifications, beeps and alluring lights it's easy to find examples of this effect in your own life. You have back to back meetings and find yourself still thinking about the prior meeting. In the current one, an email notification pops up and completely derails your focus on the current task. You check your phone under your desk during a lecture and find yourself unable to refocus on the professor's words. You're having a conversation with a friend or partner, but find your mind racing on the work email you just received rather than listening to what they're saying. The research further indicates it doesn't seem to matter whether the task switch is macro, that is Moving from one major task to the next, or micro, that is Pausing one major task for a quick check on some minor task. Stopping to quickly check your email or messages is just as bad as jumping between one major project and another. As Cal Newport concluded, if like most you rarely go more than 10 to 15 minutes without a just check, you have effectively put yourself in a persistent state of self imposed cognitive handicap. The flip side of course, is to imagine the relative cognitive enhancement that would follow, but by minimizing this effect, end quote Attention residue is derailing your productivity, leading you to spend more time working to generate lower quality and quantity of output. We've all felt the pain. Here's how we can fight back four strategies to reclaim your attention I have experimented with several tactical strategies for managing attention residue that have been highly effective in my life. 4 strategies you can implement today 1. Create a boot up sequence Having a consistent routine to get in the zone is extremely helpful. Your personal boot up sequence is a series of actions that prime your mind and body for focus. Deep work. For me, this involves the cold brew, coffee, black classical music on, noise canceling headphones, sitting in a bright well lit environment. Importantly, I can generally create those conditions whether I'm at home or on the road, which means I can get myself into a focused state no matter where I am. Create your own boot up sequence and your attention performance will improve. 2. Schedule Focus Blocks this is the most fundamental strategy for fighting back against attention residue. Block time on your calendar for sprints of focused energy. Download a simple focus app for your computer I like Flow and use it to set a timer for a focus block length. The app will restrict any apps you want from being opened during your block. I typically restrict texts, email, slack and Twitter as those are my biggest time wasters and notification drivers. If you're prone to checking your phone like I am, put it in another room so that you physically can't see or touch it you'll build your focus muscle progressively. Start with 30 minutes once per day. Work your way up to one hour two to three times per day by the end of the first month. From there, extend the periods to two hours or four hours, an ambitious target. As your focus muscle strengthens, it may mean reconfiguring your calendar a bit, but since most people do their best work early before most daily calls start or late after most daily calls end, it should be doable. 3. Take a walk Attention residue is at its worst when we're forced into back to back meetings. For some reason, we've decided that all meetings should be 30 minutes long and then we fill five to 10 minutes of the call with silly banter about the weather. Whenever possible, create open windows of at least 5 minutes between higher value tasks. Schedule 25 minute calls or note up front the desire to be efficient. Say you want to give people their time back so that it's about helping them block those windows on your calendar. During these windows, do one of the Take a walk without your phone. No checking email Take a breath, close your eyes and breathe deeply in a box format. 4 seconds in, 4 second hold, 4 seconds out, 4 second hold. Do 10 reps of that focusing on the breath. The walk or breathing exercise serves as a reset button for your brain. Use it regularly and 4 leverage Parkinson's Law Parkinson's Law is the idea that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. Have all day to process email and you end up emailing for the entire day. Have 30 minutes to process email and you crank through your entire inbox in a flash. To use this to your advantage, pick a few time constrained windows during the day when you will deeply focus on the task of processing email or messages. Those notifications that prompt the just checks that are so damning to your attention. In addition to improving your attention while focusing on other tasks, this change will improve the quality of your email and message responses since you'll actually be focused on them rather than trying to balance them against some other task. The Life Changing Magic of Attention Attention residue is a silent killer of your work quality and efficiency. Understanding it and taking the right steps to fight back will have an immediate positive impact on your work and life. We may never formulate our own theory of general relativity, but we can all achieve up to our potential by leveraging the power of attention. It's time we all discover the life changing magic of attention. That's all for today. I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you learned something and I hope you'll share it with others. As always. Until next time, stay curious, friends.