Mark C. Winters explains attention residue, the mental drag that happens when you switch tasks. Some of your focus stays stuck on what you just left, tanking performance on what's next. Time blocking and having someone else handle operations while you focus on vision helps solo founders avoid the trap.
Sophie Leroy (2009).
Mark C. Winters.
Time blocking (long, uninterrupted focus periods).
Hi, everybody. It's Mark C. Winners. And today I want to tell you a story about a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport. And Cal introduces an effect in that book, or he references an effect that was introduced by a business professor named Sophie leroy back in 2009. And she called this effect attention residue. And what happens is, what she found was that when you're switching from task A to task B, all of your attention doesn't follow you immediately. There's a certain amount of your attention that keeps thinking about task A. It stays there like a residue in your mind that occupies that thinking. So in effect, you get slimed. Right? What they found is that the correlation between attention residue and productivity is negatively correlated. So the more attention residue you have, the less productive you are, the poorer your performance is on that next task that you take on. So. So time blocking is obviously a great strategy to try to put all this stuff together to minimize the effect of those switching costs. Because what the ideal would be is if you could spend a long, uninterrupted period of time focusing intensely and working hard on a single task without being interrupted. So use time blocking to help you do that, and then thinking about how this really applies to visionaries and integrators in a unique way. When you think about how different the tasks and the thinking work of a visionary is and what that of an integrator is, I mean, they're like night and day. So I'm feeling for a solo visionary integrator out there that's really trying to do both of those roles by themselves. And I'm mindful of how much attention residue you're building up and switching back and forth between those tasks. So I want you to be aware of that and watch out for it. Okay, so three key things to wrap this one up. Number one, be aware of attention residue. Be on the lookout for it and be aware of it. It's going to hurt your performance. It'll hurt your productiv. Number two, use time blocking to give yourselves long stretches of uninterrupted time to focus intensely on a single task without switching. And number three, for you solo visionaries and integrators, I want you to really think about visionary what it would be like if you had an integrator in your life. And how would that change this effect of attention residue for you? Thanks for watching. Today at Rocket Fuel Ventures, we're all about creating the most powerful visionary integrator duos on the planet. And we do that by helping you crystallize what it means to be a visionary and an integrator, so you can understand if that concept can help you, and if you decide it can, to get connected with your complementary counterpart and then finally maximize that relationship to make it everything it can be to help you take your company to the next level. So if you want more rocket Fuel, please check out our website@rocketfuelnow.com and that's where you can sign up for the weekly videos like this. Be sure you're you're getting these on a regular basis. You you can also take the assessments so you can understand, as a visionary or as an integrator, where your strengths lie and what the shape is of your two piece puzzles that can help you find that complementary counterpart. And finally, of course, read the book Rocket Fuel and keep those great reviews coming. So until next time, go Rocket.
