Tag Archives: focus

Time on task

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A running joke as principal of a school is that the biggest part of the job is ‘other duties as assigned’. It’s the things you don’t expect in your day, like mopping up a mess, or being first aid attendant, or problem solving an issue you never dealt with before, and never thought you would. A vice principal I had many years ago said, “Being a VP is only a 4-hour a day job, the problem is you usually get almost none of that work done between 8:30am and 4pm.

The thing that I find most challenging is time on task… and staying on task. When there are 1,000 little interruptions in a day, it often takes time to get back into what you are doing. Something that could be done in 20 minutes uninterrupted can end up taking well over half a day to get done, and 25-30 minutes on task to do because each time you come back to the task you’ve got to figure things out again.

I had an issue recently where I was going back and forth with a parent on email. It was for something we are planning together. He sent me an email, I followed up with the planning with a teacher and got back to the parent… except I didn’t??? He emailed a week+ later asking for my response. I went to my sent mail, searched my drafts, the response I thought I sent wasn’t sent. I did have a response and exchange with the teacher in Microsoft Teams but did not send a response to the parent. Everything is good now, but I hate the idea that we were both waiting on each other and the holdup was me.

Stuff like that doesn’t happen often but when it does, it’s usually when I’m juggling too many things at once. The ‘other duties as assigned’ add elements of both surprise and distraction to your day and staying focused on all the metaphorical balls you are juggling isn’t easy.

Using the juggling metaphor reminded me of another metaphor a friend shared a while ago: “Stuff, not people.”

“Stuff, not people. When things get really busy, and you can’t do everything, things will ‘fall off the back of your truck’. When that happens, make sure that it’s stuff, and not people.”

As we head into the holidays, a stressful and very busy time for many, this is an important reminder… at least for me… that a list of tasks can wait, a lot of interruptions are important parts of my day. And while my tasks can feel important, they aren’t as important as the people I work with and for.

Resilience building

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I mentioned this in my post yesterday about Generation X, “for the most part this is a generation that is tough, tolerant, and resilient. Resilience is something I see a lot of younger generations struggling with.”

Here are a few ways I see a lack of resilience in students today:

• Feedback is viewed too critically. Comments on achievement or performance are taken personally, as if constructive feedback on an outcome is a personal attack on the person. “You could have done a better job with…” is interpreted as, “You are a failure”. There is little or no separation between feedback on a presentation or product and feedback on personal identity, all critical feedback feels like an attack.

In my role as a principal I recently gave some behavioural feedback to a student who later emailed me and said among other things, “I’m not a bad person.” At no time did I ever say or believe this person was bad, just making poor choices. It didn’t matter to the student that I separated the behavior out as the issue, it was still taken as a personal attack.

• Hurt feelings are not handled well. Words are treated like physical attacks. There is limited separation between minor and major harm. This can come across in many ways, but essentially the old ‘sticks and stones‘ nursery rhyme has been turned around and sounds more like, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always harm me more.”

Now I’m not a proponent of the ideas that words don’t hurt. Social bullying can be far more brutal than a physical fight which ends in 20 seconds, and taunting and continuous verbal attacks can be devastating to deal with… But when a simple moment of teasing between friends is seen as just as hurtful as a verbal assault from a bully with a power differential between the bully and the victim, then there is a problem. When words instantly hurt and the scale of impact is always high, there is a definite issue of lack of resilience.

• Self loathing. Self talk like, “I’m not good enough.” Or, “It’s too hard.” Or simply, “I can’t!” …All get in the way of effort. There seems to be a (legitimate) struggle with the mental aspect of doing hard things. I added ‘(legitimate)’ because I’m not trying to say that the person is just quitting, rather there seems to be a mental roadblock that some students face which gets in the way of successful work.

This is very hard to deal with as a teacher. It comes across as the student being lazy, or distracted, or even defiant. But it’s not so much that the students doesn’t want to, they just really don’t know how to frame the work in a way that makes it a priority. I think this is a resilience issue too. When hard things are avoided rather than faced over and over again, the work of doing something hard becomes too difficult to face, and what gets defined as hard becomes less and less difficult over time.

I can’t put my finger on the causes for the lack of resilience I’m seeing today? It can be a trifecta of parenting, technology distraction, and media influences, or maybe just cultural norms? But we need to start thinking about resilience building as a teachable outcome.

Failure is not getting a bad result, failure is accepting a bad result without learning the hard lessons about what didn’t work. Failure is not seeking out the support to do better next time. Failure is a lack of reflection and feedback about how to improve. Failure is a lack of resilience, and resilience is something that isn’t strengthened without hearing hard things, and feeling hurt, or discouraged, or disappointed, and both working though and overcoming the difficulty.

Resilience is built, it is earned, it isn’t bestowed. It’s tough to toughen up. If it was easy it wouldn’t actually build resilience.

Do the thing

“Preparing to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Scheduling time to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Making a to-do list for the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Telling people you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Writing a banger tweet about how you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Hating on yourself for not doing the thing isn’t doing the thing. Hating on other people who have done the thing isn’t doing the thing. Hating on the obstacles in the way of doing the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Fantasizing about all of the adoration you’ll receive once you do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Reading about how to do the thing isn’t doing the thing. Reading about how other people did the thing isn’t doing the thing. Reading this essay isn’t doing the thing.

The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing.” ~ Strangest Loop

It doesn’t matter if it’s a workout, a phone call, a challenging conversation, or even a blog post. The task won’t get done unless you actually do it. That said, if you want it done, it’s good to schedule it, it’s good to add it to your tasks, and it’s good to tell people and make the thing public. The quote above doesn’t dismiss doing these preparatory things, it just identifies that these aren’t enough.

The only thing that is enough is doing the thing.

Internal dialogue

I find it interesting how the voice in our heads can be so loud. Sometimes it’s like we live two different lives, one in the 3-dimensional world and one in the ethereal space between our ears. Both lives playing out simultaneously and each distracting ourselves from the other.

Sometimes they sync and we become a singularly focused person… both lives becoming one in moments of joy, love, anger, or gratitude, as examples. But often those are high and low moments that draw our mutually focused attentions. Most of our lives they seem to be in minor conflict with each other, fighting for our full attention.

I like the moments when my internal dialogue is quiet, and more focused on being present in the physical world, but there are times when this seems impossible. There are times when the internal dialogue is a complete distraction from reality, in a full on battle for attention. When I’m in this space, the internal dialogue usually wins. These are times that I’m more comfortable being alone than in the presence of anyone. Yet, I don’t feel alone… I’ve got an internal voice keeping me company.

This is neither good nor bad, this is determined by context. If I’m thinking of something dark or gloomy, it can be a bad headspace to be in. But if I’m deep in thought and excited about some new learning or ideas, or if I’m creating or writing, then I could be in a fantastic headspace.

My internal dialogue is like a second world, a second life that lives inside my head, and can be on a continuum from fully engaged in the physical world to almost fully ignorant of my surroundings. Both extreme cases can be wonderful, but it seems I live most of my life balancing the two worlds as best as I can.

Being present

It’s not easy to be fully present. We can pay attention. We can focus. We can prioritize what is happening around us. We can’t always keep ourselves fully aware of our situation without our thoughts distracting us.

Play with a kid and they might be fully enthralled in the game or activity, but we are thinking about starting to prep the next meal. Talking to a friend, they say something that makes us think about something else, only somewhat related. Listening to a lesson in class, the teacher’s voice drifts away as our own unrelated thoughts get louder.

There is no malice, no intended distraction, we just aren’t as present as we could be. It’s part of the human condition. But sometimes we find moments of clarity. We still our mind, and it stops interfering with the one thing we are doing. Clarity and focus prevail. We are momentarily fully present.

But is being lost in thought truly being present? Is there a difference between being fully focused on a task and fully focused on a thought? Is there a difference between being present in a conversation and moving it forward in a different direction because that’s where the conversation goes, versus moving it in a distracted tangent? How do we know the difference?

It seems to me that awareness of being present takes us out of being present. But ignorance of our presence can equally be ignorance of distraction. So being fully present is illusive. It comes when it comes, and it drifts when it drifts. I guess that’s why meditation is so challenging. It is creating a state where that state needs to be unconscious to be fully engaged. Being present is a skill we can learn, but not one we can practice easily, because when we reach the state we want, the very awareness of it takes us out of that state.

I enjoy moments of being fully present, but now that I think about it, the enjoyment really comes afterwards… because in the moments of being fully present the idea of enjoyment doesn’t matter. What matters is the moment itself, not the appreciation of the moment. That comes later.

Energy flow

Some things take a lot of energy to perform, and some things give you energy.

Here are a couple opposing examples:

Meeting new people can take a lot of energy. There is the nervousness of not being sure what to say, the struggle to find common interests, the uncomfortableness of awkward silence. Meeting new people can be draining.

Working out requires a lot of energy output, but at the same time there is an endorphin surge that provides a positive feeling. The net energy you have after a good workout is fulfilling.

While both of these experiences require energy, one leaves you feeling depleted, sucking your energy batteries dry, while the other replenishes your batters and leaves you feeling charged and ready to go.

In a way, the cumulative sum of draining versus charging activities determines what kind of day you have. At the end of the day you can feel like the day wiped you out or it left you with some reserves.

You can do challenging things emotionally or physically (or both) and end your day feeling very accomplished or just exhausted. The big question is, did the day just happen to you, were you just a victim of the positive and negative energy flows, or did you help to determine them?

In other words, did you seek to perform more positive energy experiences than negative ones? Did you find moments in your day where you filled your batteries? Did you feed your mind and body with joyful moments that charged your energy reserves? Sometimes it doesn’t take much: a delicious meal, a shared joke, a 5 minute walk, a deliberate conversation, a compliment given, even a few deep breaths.

Simple, intentional things that bring you energy rather than drain energy can be the difference between coming home feeling accomplished and coming home with an empty tank. Be intentional in seeking out things that give you a positive flow of energy during the day.

The shiny object

“Highly focused people do not leave their options open. They select their priorities and are comfortable ignoring the rest. If you commit to nothing, you’ll be distracted by everything.” ~ James Clear

I call it squirrel brain with a hat tip to the dog in the animated movie ‘Up!’. He has a collar that allows him to talk, but that doesn’t matter once he sees a squirrel… the distraction is too great.

It’s that scattered sense of paying attention to the closest shiny object, the new distraction, the most recent email, the interruption, the grumble of your tummy. Sometimes it’s a needed break, but most times it’s a distraction. It’s inefficient and ultimately ineffective.

“If you commit to nothing, you’ll be distracted by everything.”

Sometime you need to put blinders on, and intentionally block or reduce the distractions. You need to resist the urge to get the newest distraction done before moving on. The shinier new thing that popped up can wait. The notification can stay unread, and the ‘to do’ list should be just that one thing that needs to be focused on, and nothing else until this one priority is completed.

Focus is not easy to maintain, but productivity soars when focus is given and distractions are left behind. Although sometimes the trick is realizing what really is the distraction. When I used to spend 15 minutes looking for an image to go with my blog post, that was 15 minutes that I wasn’t writing or meditating, or working out. Was the image essential enough to take that much time? Probably not. But at least I did it after writing… unlike today when I broke my writing stride to find the image above of the dog from Up!

I’m definitely a work in progress with my attention and distractions. The trick is to recognize priorities and reduce distractions that detract from those priorities. And like with most advice, this is much easier said than done.

I think therefore…

I think therefore I… reflect, plan, worry, and I delude myself. I think therefore… I am not. I am not existing in the moment when I’m not thinking in the moment. Instead I am creating an illusion of what was or what will be. This is not the counter argument to René Descartes’ “I think therefore I am”. It is a commentary on what we actually think about. Thinking about the past and future does not negate our existence, but thinking about anything other than the present moment is more about existing than living.

This is why there is so much appeal to exhilarating experiences. It’s hard to worry about anything more than the present moment when we are skydiving, bungee jumping, river rafting, rock climbing, dancing, playing music, having sex, or even playing a competitive sport. These moments demand our moment-to-moment presence, they give us the ‘I am’ experience of being the thinker.

But more often than not we are thinkers thinking about moments other than now, and thus not fully living. It’s a useful exercise to meditate, to take a moment to be singularly aware of the moment. To be present in the present. Here. Now. There is irony in the fact that not thinking and just being is to be more present, more in the ‘I am’ state, than when in a thinking state. I think therefore I am… distracted. Whereas when I focus on my current experience and I am in the present, then I am here, and I am now. I am truly living.

Getting unstuck

I remember teaching Grade 6/7’s about Nigerian fables. One of them was about a greedy animal during hard times. All the animals had collected food and stored it in a clearing to share, but each night some of the food went missing. To catch the culprit they put tar around the food and the thief got caught in it. The next day after an apology the other animals started trying to pull the animal out. He was extremely stuck and they yanked so hard that they stretched this animal and ripped of its legs.

The fable is about not being greedy, but the title is something like, “How snakes came to be.” I love when the moral is not explicit in the storytelling.

I got thinking about this for a totally different reason, one I’m far more explicit about in my title… the idea of getting unstuck. Sometimes we absolutely have to step out of our current experience in order to see what’s possible beyond where we currently are.

The saying, ‘No matter where you go, there you are,’ has come up a few times recently in conversation. This is only true if you let it happen, if you stay inside of the tiny box you put around yourself. There are people who travel all around the world and they look forward to seeing a Macdonald’s, Burger King, or Starbucks. They look to keep their world the same. But travel can give you so much more than that. There are people who keep friends that aren’t nice to them, who dismiss an entire genre of music, who stick to a plan and never take side adventures. None of these people might see themselves as stuck but they are.

For me personally, I’ve been stuck in pain and/or drowsiness for a couple months and while I’m slowly recovering, I am also stuck in the way my days go. I’m not following any healthy routines to consistently workout or meditate. I can still ride a stationary bicycle without causing any harm to the bulged disc in my neck. Meditation would actually be great right now and I’ve let my daily habit slip.

I’m going through slow (admittedly often dizzy) motions of the day waiting for moments of clarity, but when they come I don’t necessarily take advantage of them. I need to see beyond my current condition. I need to see what I what to accomplish in the future and I need to do things now to support that. I need first to have goals that I want to achieve beyond where I am now, then I need to move towards those goals.

Sometimes it only takes baby steps, sometimes it takes a massive leap. But you don’t get unstuck thinking ‘No matter where you go, there you are’. The issue with this is not about geography, it’s about moving who you are to who you want to be.

Time and attention

I feel like in the last 5-10 years i’ve seen a shift in how time and attention are spent. Distractions are everywhere, especially in our phones that are almost always within reach. Distractions take time. Distractions draw our attention. But what about when we aren’t distracted?

When phones with on demand social media, streaming movies and series, and time sucking games or scrolling are not what we are doing, what then? Are we being efficient? Are we dedicating time to the right things, the things we say are the priorities in our life? And when we do spend this time, are we doing so with our full attention?

That’s the key question: when I’m giving of my time, am I also giving of my full attention?

What, and more importantly who, deserves your full attention?