Take a moment to think of a boring task you’ve recently experienced…
Did you have a challenging time limit? Were you motivated to constantly improve? Could you see a clear progression of improvement? I’ll bet good money that you didn’t experience any of these conditions.
Boredom dissolves the second we see ourselves improving. No matter how boring a task may seem, if we have a short time constraint, a benchmark to improve upon and a clear visual representation of progression – boredom dissolves and you become deeply engaged in your work.
The first step to becoming engaged in your work is to embrace constraints.
Constraints force us to think about what is valuable and what is not. Constraints generate creative tension. This tension deepens our focus.
“We need constraint in order to fuel passion and insight…It is from the interaction between constraint and the disregard for the impossible that unexpected insights, cleverness, and imagination are born.”
– Marissa Ann Mayer (Yahoo! CEO and previous Google homepage interface manager)
The best work constraint is a short deadline.
Working for short time durations reduces the likelihood of being distracted or making poor decisions.
Josh Waitzkin, 5-time US Junior National Chess Champion and the basis of the movie ‘Searching for Bobby Fischer’, found that his best chess games involved 2-10 minute periods of deep focus. His worst games included more than twenty minutes of intense thinking before making a move. A number of long focus periods in a row led to a fatal decision that ultimately led to a loss. His conclusion: “Pushing your focus causes your mind to become repetitive and imprecise.”
A 1976 study found that students’ focus ebbed and flowed of during a typical college lecture period. They observed the students attention minute-by-minute and determined that the students needed a three-to-five minute period of settling down, followed by 10 to 18 minutes of optimal focus. Then, no matter how good the teacher or how compelling the subject matter, there would come an attention lapse.
After your initial burst of creativity (see Day 2 of the course for details), it’s critical that you fixate your attention on a given work task for no longer than 10 minutes at a time. I’ve experimented with longer time durations, like the 25 minutes used in the Pomodoro technique, but my attention remains highest throughout the day if I break my work into 10-minute sections. Ten minutes is short enough for you to capture and postpone any distraction that might arise while working in this 10-minute window.
You may think that having an period of undistracted time in an office environment is next to impossible – you have email, phone calls and constant requests to ‘chat’ coming your way. The beauty of the 10 minute work sprint is that you can always delay a request for 10 minutes – if someone needs something sooner than 10 minutes they are likely panicking and making you the victim for their inability to plan ahead. We can only achieve consistent focus at work when we learn to work in a ‘responsive’ way, rather than a ‘reactive’ way, Being responsive is turning your email off for 10 minutes, putting your phone straight to voice mail for 10 minutes and turning your phone to airplane mode for 10 minutes. At the end of a 10-minute timer you can turn everything back on and response to messages you missed. Doing so lets you to work on your time and allows you to thoughtfully respond to other peoples requests instead of reacting to urgent demands all day.
At the end of one or two 10-minute timers take a short break – stand up, getting a drink of water and consciously taking few deep breaths. Micro-breaks are all you need in a 2-3 hour work span (we will discuss the need for longer breaks a different points in the day during tomorrow’s session). Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University found that taking a “1-minute break was just as effective as taking a longer break of 5 or 9 minutes.”
Time to Capture
At the end of each work sprint take a brief moment to reflect on your work. Use the ‘print screen’ function on your computer OR snap a quick photo with the camera on your smartphone. The act of taking a ‘snapshot’ of your work allows you to gain a new perspective and causes you to reflect on your progress.
“Our research (an examination of 12,000 journal entries from 238 knowledge workers in 3 industries) revealed that the best way to motivate people, day in and day out, is by facilitating progress – even small wins. But the managers in our survey ranked “supporting progress” dead last as a work motivator.”
– Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in The Progress Principle
When considering how to improve upon your work, ask yourself: ‘How would I rate my progress on a scale of 1-10?’. When forced to rate something on a fixed scale your brain will automatically search for reasons why something isn’t a perfect 10 and what needs to be done to get there. Whatever numbers comes to mind gives you a mental benchmark to improve upon. Having a goal of constant improvement is highly motivating.
If you never take a moment to reflect on your progress the work can become frustrating and exhausting. By taking ‘snapshots’ you can look back in your clipboard history (if you using the ‘print screen’ function on your computer) OR on your camera roll (if you used your smartphone to take snapshots). Scrolling through photos provides a clear line of progression that you can be proud of.
Using short timers makes the work feel like a fun challenge by pressuring yourself to meet your expectations. When you periodically reflect on your progress you begin striving for constant improvement and eliminate the feeling of boredom.
The ONE takeaway today:
Working in a series of short time intervals to maximize attention (these short time intervals are even shorter than those used in the Pomodoro technique).
Practical action sequence:
- Time: start a short timer (usually 10-minutes) and work with intense, uninterrupted focus until the timer expires
- Reflect: take a second to capture your work using the ‘print screen’ on your computer or the camera on your smartphone.
- Rate: think to yourself ‘how would I rate my progress on a scale of 1-10?’
- Mirco-break: take a micro-break by standing up, taking a deep breath and having a drink of water.
- Improve: start the next interval and try to improve your progress – repeat this process until you feel fully engaged in your work and motivated to complete the task
An image to take home with you:
The game of basketball uses a 30-second ‘shot clock’ to limit the amount of time each team has possession of the ball while on offense. The offensive team must take a shot in order to reset the ‘shot clock’. Your ‘shot clock’ is a 10-minute work sprint. You’re forced to go on the offense and move the ball up the court. You’re required to take a shot (snapshot) in order to reset the ‘shot clock’ and maintain possession of the ball.
Distraction Hit-list:
Unmotivated – ELIMINATED
Overwhelmed – ELIMINATED
Bored – ELIMINATED
Anxious – Day 4
Apprehensive – Day 5
Your attention can only survive so many short time sprints. Eventually, your focus will waver and you will need to step away for longer than a few minutes. Tomorrow I will show you the art of restoring and sustaining mental energy.