Toluu

The Economics of Attention

Wrestling back control of our data

5 things you can do to get a hold of your attentionAugust 6

Filter more: Not everything deserves valuable real estate in your frontal cortex. Some things can be routed and stored for batch processing later on.  Try to filter email that is routine and requires minimal attention.  Make things like bills and coupons available when you need them, but out of your in-box and brain.  Save these for later for when you ultimately climb into the elusive “paying bills and balancing the checkbook” zone.

in-box zero

Delegate? Sounds great!: Some things you procrastinate on maybe be other people’s problem. Knowing it’s in some one else’s hands will free you from the guilt and let you worry about other, more important things.

Home based chore delegation: chorebuster.com

Work based project task delegation: Google Sites

Step back and pause: Think of things in context, the big picture. Getting lost in minutia and process often leads to missing the actual goal.  Set aside a time every week to get a grip.  About an hour would be ideal.

Life laundry day

GTD weekly review

“Golden Rule” communication: Do

Post 3: Attention ToolsJuly 29

Gathering data on attention will yield more than just a general sense of, “Oh, that’s cool.” Having insight into the way people think in your organization is an opportunity for better coaching, more effective motivation, correct job placement, and well-managed flowing projects.

Example of an AttentionScape

Once you know where the attention is, you can begin to correct it.

Correct Attention Imbalances

The AttenionScape tracks subjects over 3 variables (the attention types ) This was designed for groups but can be done on individuals if the same things are queried over time and averaged.  Here are some and applications for this type of Attention study.

• Attention Modeling: With clear individual attention patterns, you will be able to match-up poor-performers with high-performers of similar com

Part 2: Measuring AttentionJuly 24

Attention, like most things, can be measured in a variety of ways; how much, accuracy, level of precision, etc.  Study is advancing very quickly in this area and has shown that most of us can’t pay attention longer than 40 minutes.  Brains tend shut off and try something new at that point if they haven’t already been interrupted and lost 15 min by then.

From a business perspective, you should be interested in what employees pay attention to about their job and to what degree.  Are they thinking about leaving for another company?  Which competitor and how much of the time do they do this?  Do they care about the important project?  How much and for the right reasons?

Using the 3 different aspects of attention as variables (Part 1: What is Attn?) we can begin to map the responses according to attention type.  A neat way to accomplish this was pioneered by Accenture for the AttentionScape explained in the book

Part 1: What is Attention?July 22

This is part of a series that will explore what attention is, how we deal with it, and how it can be measured and focused. What is Attention?

Attention is a physical allotment of mental focus. Attention is limited as you only have so much; a zero sum game. Even attention you planned to use this weekend not doing anything is taken and not available for anything else.

Everyone uses and manipulates attention in their work, at play, in love and hate. You can push a co-worker’s button to get their cooperation. Procrastination is a lack of attention. Answering emails as they pop into your in-box diverts your attention from what you are doing, making it harder to re-focus your attention. Attention is everything you do; the filter or bottleneck to your mind.

Attention is made of three distinct types of focus:

Attractive/ Aversive: Is the product of applied attention good or bad? The carrot or stick part of ourselves. Are we focusing on something in hopes of reward or fear of the whip?

Front-of-the-mind/ Back-of-the-mind: Is this something that requires higher level brain processes? Like a hungry bear descending from above in a hang glider? You will pay attention to his rate of descent and trajectory. Or is it something that requires little mental capacity, like the level of force to apply to the accelerator at an intersection?

$650 BillionJune 30

“Some of the biggest technology firms, including Microsoft, Intel, Google and I.B.M., are banding together to fight information overload”

That amount of money reported by a reputable paper like the Wall Street journal more than legitimizes study and action concerning attention. Yay for not being irrelevant!
New trends will emerge as “attention resources” and “attention management” become corporate buzzwords.

• New positions: Look for HR to add positions in middle management to help shape corporate and inter-office communications. Basically, they will be filters; distilling needs and core messages from everything flying around the office.
• New tech: Knowledge Management will be getting an overall as companies notice the often conflicting messages between corporate communications and available information resources. Wikis, search engines, meta-tags are the best bets to handle research needs and to promote company consensus on any given issue.
• New Equipment: Dual-Screens for everyone? No blackberry zones? Watch and see how “form follows function” will gain strict new adherents. Companies will need to learn to balance moral against cutting access to the web and email because for some,