“What information consumes is rather obvious:it consumes the attention of the recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” By-Herbert Simon, renowned social scientist
We are constantly bombarded with overwhelming amounts of information and content from various sources. It becomes a serious challenge to find your focus and attention to produce real work that matters.
At workplace we face a very serious challenge of how should we spend our precious time on creative and productive work. We are pulled by varying distractions like attending to meetings, responding to mails, getting phone calls, casual social media chatting in between.
We need to overcome this paradox and have to develop a method to find meaning in this madness. The amount of energy and time that is lost is staggering to the corporate world. It leaves no time for people to focus on creativity.
Many people have done research on this issue and written articles to suggest a daily routine which should have focused block of time dedicated to the tasks which are most important to you and to the organisation. Blocking off time is just one part of it, we have to also ensure that we do not get distracted. It is very difficult to change the mindset and become habitual to this new routine.
Each one of us should strive to come out of this drudgery by designing our unique daily routine using this approach. It is easier said than done, so try to have smaller blocks of focus time and then gradually move to larger ones. This is a new age menace which is leading to attention disorders and mental issues which have long lasting consequences.
Pankaj Chhabra 