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I worked constantly for hours, but I feel as if I hadn’t even started. My attention is paid to my assigned task – I write this story – a lot of what I consider with the necessary breaks to work. (Well, the couple was from my cat, which also firmly believes in their necessity.)
My children and I call such days as “Squirrel Days” In honor of the slopTalking Dog In (Squirrel !!) The 2009 Pixar movie “Up“Who (protein !!) was constantly distracted well, almost (protein !!) …
Unfortunately, all of us spend the days of “squirrels”, according to Dr. Gloria Mark, a professor of computer science at the University of California Irwin, who studies how digital media affect our lives. In her book “The task of attention: An innovative way of restoring balance, happiness and performance, ”Mark explains how decades of research have tracked a decrease in the ability to concentrate.
“In 2004, we measured the average attention on the screen, which is 2.5 minutes,” Mark said. “A few years later, we found that attention is about 75 seconds. Now we find that people can pay attention to only one screen on average 47 seconds. ”
According to Mark, people not only concentrate in less than a minute on any screen, but also when attention is paid from the active working project, they take about 25 minutes to reorient for this task. (Wait, what ??)
“In fact, our study shows that it takes 25 minutes, 26 seconds before we return to the initial work sphere or project,” Mark said.
How can it be? “If we look at the work in terms of switching projects, unlike a micro -vision of the screens, we find that people spend about 10.5 minutes in any working project before interrupting them – inside or someone else – and then switch to another working project,” Mark said.
Yes, but then we return to the original work, right? Wrong, said Mark. Instead, when we are interrupted in the second project, we again switch to another task – we call it the third project. It is incredible that her study showed that we are also interrupted in the project of the third and move on to the fourth project.
“And then you will return and raise the original interrupted project,” Mark said. “But not that you are interrupted, and you do nothing. For more than 25 minutes you actually work on other things. ”
(At least I can tell my boss that when I miss my deadline.)
“Nevertheless, there is also the cost of switching,” added Mark. “The cost of switching is the time you need to reorient to your work:“ Where have I been? What did I think about? “This additional effort can also lead to errors and stress.”
Why is it all a problem? In the end, this is called multitasking, which many consider highly valuable ability to cope with the requirements of the information age.
“With the exception of several rare people, there is no such thing as multitasking,” Mark said. “If one of the tasks is not automatic, for example, chewing elastic or walking, you cannot do two complex things at the same time.”
For example, she said, you cannot read by e -mail and be on the video of the meeting. When you focus on one, you lose another. “You really quickly switch your attention between them,” said Mark. “And when you quickly switch your attention, it correlates with stress.”
Arterial pressure rises. The heart rate accelerates. According to her, the psychological measures of stress also show negative results, such as more fatigue, error and less performance: “The more people multitask, the more mistakes they make.”
Who did it with us? Of course, we, with the help of technical culprits, social mediatablets and television. But Mark is most accused of e -mail.
“For me, e -mail is probably the worst because it has become a symbol of work,” she said, adding that her study found a direct correlation between e -mail and a lot of stress.
“We will turn off the email for some employees in the organization for one working week,” she said. “Using heart rhythm monitors, we found that they became much less tense and were able to concentrate much longer.”
(I pause to look for flights to Bora Bora. Oh, right. They also have e -mail.)
“It is impossible for a person to simply completely cut off technology and work in the modern world,” said Mark. “So, let's learn to live with this in such a way as to preserve our positive well -being.”
According to Mark, the restoration of your attention requires you to remember how you use technology, a difficult task if you consider average American expenses at least 10 hours a day on screensField
Paradoxically, you can use technology to help, she said. Plan for work on the first part of the day, when you do not completely warn, and then use technologies to block distracting factors when you are in the best possible way. At night, unload the tasks from your brain by recording them, and then release the list.
Turn out sites of social networks? To hide them, Mark said: “Remove the badges from your desktop and the funeral of the application on your phone inside the folders, where additional efforts are required to find them. Leave your phone in another room or put in a box and block. ”
It is also important to find out when to take a break. “If you need to read something more than once or if the words are simply not registered, it's time to stop and replenish,” she said.
The best break Walk in nature: “Only a 20-minute walk in nature can help significantly in relaxing people,” Mark said. “And we found that this can help people produce significantly more ideas – this is called divergent thinking.
Is it too cold to go out? Do something attractive, which does not require mental effort.
“I have a friend, MIT professor, and his favorite lesson is the appropriate socks,” said Mark. “Another friend loves to iron. Ideas can incubate, and then we return to hard work, and we see it with fresh eyes. ”
