Attention management is a phrase made popular in relationship to productivity by my friend, author Maura Nevel Thomas, in her book of the same title. Her simple definition is the practice of controlling your attention. It is a practice (that takes practice), and the better we get at it, the more effective we will be as leaders.
Why Attention Management Matters for Leaders
Being better at controlling our attention is a human skill, a life skill. But when we are the leader of others, it takes on another level of importance. Here are four reasons why.
- Your team is watching you. What they see you working on they (logically) deem as important. If your attention drifts, if you don’t stay focused, neither will they.
- You can create confusion. If you say, on your best days when you have prepared for the meeting, what is important, and then they see you focused elsewhere, they will be confused.
- You reduce your ability to coach. It won’t matter how clearly you share their priorities and goals, if you can’t stay focused, your words will ring hollow.
You sacrifice results. When you, and by extension your team, can’t stay focused, you won’t be as productive and are less likely to hit your most important targets (you know the ones you wanted to keep your attention on).
Five Practices That Will Help
Here are five specific things you can do as a leader that will help you with your personal Attention Management practice.
- Know what the most important things are. We want to manage to keep our attention on the things that most serve us and our team, so we must know what those things are. Until that (very) short list is clear, your attention management efforts won’t give you the greatest results.
- Know your biggest distractions and remove them. If you don’t know what they are, start with your devices. Whatever they are, find ways to remove their presence or remove yourself from them when you need to be at peak attention.
- Schedule working blocks – and breaks. Schedule a task or project for 30-90 minutes and stay in that work without deviation. Then, take a break. The breaks are both necessary and a reward for your successful attention management!
- Give yourself some quick pockets of time. This is a quote from Maura and is incredibly wise. As a leader, you need more thinking time. And while longer periods of time for thought are valuable, so are quick pockets to review progress, reflect on results, and plan for what is next.
- Grade yourself. Take time to assess how successful your attention management was that day. Based on your observations, congratulate yourself, and rededicate yourself to the areas you need to keep working on.
Because our thoughts drive our actions, attention management is a critical leadership skill. If you want to improve your results (and the results and impact your team can have), consider your attention. Perhaps a practice of controlling your attention more consciously and intentionally might be your best strategy.
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