Sunday 11 November 2012

Make it easier to focus on tasks

This is the actual title of subheading in the "Ease of Access Centre", which you should be able to find in your Control Panel if you run Windows.  I clicked on it, and like most of the other items in this menu, it simply offers options to customize the visual and verbal cues you receive through your computer.  For example, you can set it to read out text verbally while you read a document, beep in certain ways when you accidentally hit a button, or add a magnifier to your desktop.

Of course, these aren't the sort of options that I was hoping for.  Although I'm not really sure what I was hoping for - maybe some sort of setting that automatically gives you 15 minutes of email, Facebook, or news reading every 2 hours, and otherwise restricts your access?  Who am I kidding, I would probably find it infuriating to not be able to send an email when my scattered brain remembers something I was supposed to be doing, regardless of whether it is related to the task at hand.  But this got me thinking of what it really means to "make it easier to focus on tasks".

Invariably, the degree of focus we have for anything is probably a product of three things: 1) how interested we are in the task, 2) how urgent the task is, and 3) how little else there is in the work environment to distract us from it.  Luckily, the first one usually isn't an issue for me.  The second one can be; things that aren't very urgent tend to fall by the wayside more than they should, and I tend to become much more focused as deadlines approach.  But I think ultimately the third one is really what I was thinking of when I explored that button on my computer.  Something that confers automatic tunnel-vision, an acute obliviousness to everything else around you.  Wouldn't that be great?

Well, after giving it much thought, and paying a little more attention to my own activities over the last few months, I can say with some authority that some things can help me to achieve this sort of focus, but it really depends on my mood, how much sleep I've had, and a number of other equally variable and difficult-to-predict traits.  For example, if I'm short on sleep, a cup of coffee and some munchies can help me focus - but music will distract me to no end.  If I'm well-rested but a bit jumpy or fidgety, I can focus well on tasks that require a moderate amount of brain-power (e.g., math, microscope work, etc.), but writing isn't one of them.  Sometimes going for a run or a walk will help me get rid of some extra energy, but sometimes it just distracts me even more - I find that making an overt effort to think about something I'm planning to read or write while doing so can make the work time go a little more smoothly.  On the other hand, if my only real distraction is checking my various electronic message systems too frequently, it seems that music or talk radio in the background can help divert that little voice in my head that says "I wonder if so and so has responded to my message".

So for those of you who have seen that little button in the Control Panel and thought it might hold some sort of magic screen format that will enable you to give your full attention to the task at hand, I'd recommend checking it out - and then making a concerted effort to start tracking your own moods and work habits.  You don't even need to write anything down, just make a mental note about how you're feeling when you notice you've just been distracted from the task at hand.  Eventually, you'll start to notice some patterns.  Maybe at some point, I'll recognize a pattern that would make different contrast schemes, verbal cues, or a magnifier on my screen help me to focus, but for now I can safely conclude that it's all in my head.