Thursday, September 29, 2011

Focus

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention - Herbert Simon, psychologist.

This will be a short post. I'm having trouble focusing. Actually I was driving home the other day (my one hour commute) and thinking about how I used to feel I accomplished more. I seemed to read more, go to more movies, got together with friends and hung out. What am I doing with my time?

I definitely spend more time on the computer and it can be choppy - go read a book, but get up and check something. My concentration has diminished. There's a new term "executive function" which contains cognitive skills allowing us to control thoughts and impulses. I need to work on that.

There's so much information today and the world is changing rapidly. Our minds and processes have to evolve too. But there still are key factors: Pay attention, listen. I'll repeat that one -actually listen to someone if you are having a conversation. Read. Focus.

Oops ... gotta go check something.

2 comments:

  1. Executive function? Really? Do we HAVE to have that? I kinda enjoy having a free flow through life. Maybe because I'm coming down off active motherhood and organizing five lives. Now there's just me most of the time (hubby gets to manage his own stuff), and I like flitting from one thing to the next.

    Still, I know the frustration when I can't seem to keep myself in my chair to write more than a paragraph or two. It's unfortunate that email, Facebook, Blogs, Yahoo, Weatherunderground, Google, Sudoku, Google maps, Twitter, etc., are all on the same machine as my writing. IT's way too easy to futz around when I intended to write - just after I checked FB an hour earlier. LOL!

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  2. I know where my time goes - once you have grandchildren everything changes.
    Ann

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