There is a cure for the cacophony of “I’m overwhelmed!” silently expressed daily throughout the cubicles of the business world. Our attention and working memory systems appear maxed out! Sometimes it seems it’s the result of management gaining savings by not hiring a replacement for a departed employee. In this world of “there’s no one to hire” sometimes rings falsely in the air. Maybe it’s based on the promise of “I have a special project for you” without a corresponding delegation of current duties. Sometimes an employee just fears saying no. The reasons are many. The cause is really an inward thing.
Amishi Jha, Ph.D., in her book, Peak Mind, shares, “What’s in your working memory will…constrain your perspective, your thinking, and actions. So the critical thing we need to work on is pointing the flashlight of our attention at that mental whiteboard, to see what’s on it.” This entirely new method is critical to achieving the thinking and acting capacities you need in the world we live in today. Dr. Jha goes on to note that just deciding to be aware is not enough, “… you have to build up that to that capacity.”
Science has focused more in recent years on a person’s attention system. Too often methods proposed try to have you force control of your attention by putting down or shutting off your phone, close the door to your office (if you even have one), get as quiet as you can, thinking positive thoughts and more. Science has found that it doesn’t work because you are trying to control a system that is always on alert.
Did you know 50% of your attention goes to visual perception? While a person has a range of 200 degrees of visual range, the strongest point of clarity is roughly two degrees, about the width of your two thumbs at arms’ length. Your mind is biased constantly against you. If controlling it won’t work, then what will?
A simple to-do exercise is simply to take twelve minutes (set your timer), close your eyes, and observe your breathing, for example. During this exercise, note each time your attention moves off the breathing, recognize it, and then move it back to your breaths. With this repeated daily habit there is an opportunity to solidify your attention and reduce your overwhelm moments. I have found this mindfulness training to help me understand where my attention is going and how easy it was to apply it to my day when my attention answered the “squirrel” call. Reducing your overwhelm and increasing your satisfaction with the work you do is key to your development ahead rather than caving into an ever-increasing workload.
For more exercises on understanding your attention in the book, Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day, and giving it “push ups” to prepare it for the 100% of your day, feel free to visit: https://amishi.com/
