What fills your head with thoughts and concerns during the day?
If you’re a business owner or manager you probably have a million thoughts that enter your mind.
Honestly, I don’t know how some people do it.
Work, family, money, health…it’s crazy the concerns we have today.
The troubling fact about what we focus our attention each day is that we only have so much energy to give. A study found that every time we focus our attention we use metabolic resources. And each time we focus on a new task we are less effective at the next task.
So each day you might start with an energy level of 100. That’s all you get. It gets broken down in various ways depending on how you use your focus. Reading the paper in the morning takes a little energy. The first priority at the office takes time.
Throughout the day all those big and little things add up until you’re running on empty. Then you lose your ability to focus effectively.
It’s not right or wrong necessarily. It’s just the way life works.
But what if you’re focusing on the wrong concerns?
The Wrong Concerns
By “wrong concerns” I mean things that aren’t really important to you. I’m not hear to judge. We all have things that matter to us. There is no right or wrong answer to how you spend your energy each day.
But if you feel that there is a balance issue with the focus and energy in your life then it’s time to refocus and find the areas or wrong concern in your life.
Usually life will give us little warning signs that things are getting out of whack. Our spouse makes a comment that we’re not listening. A child gives a sad face when they hear that their parent can’t spend time playing with them. We forget to prepare for an important meeting at work or completely forget to do something for a client and it makes the company look bad. A friend is let down when you don’t call them on their birthday.
Most of us would say that family and friends are the most important things in life. Making money is usually required to have a good family life to a degree so work is also a top concern for most people.
But there are many concerns outside of those areas that we turn our focus too. and it’s even more challenging today with the easy access we have to information. That access is wonderful in many ways, but if we’re not careful we can get ourselves out of balance with our focus and attention.
Here are a couple of areas where things can get out of whack.
Video
TV has been around for decades and there have been periods where TV watching has increased in the number of hours. That level has steadied over the years, but today we watch more video than ever. The reason is our access to digital video. Combined, we now watch 5.5 hours of video, including TV, every day.
As we’ve gotten more access to digital video it hasn’t really taken away from our TV viewing. We’ve simply added more video watching time to our day. And since there are only 24 hours in the day the time has to be taken from other areas of focus.
Maybe some of that video time is for work reasons or self improvement reasons. And it’s just fine to have some entertainment in our lives, but if you’re seeing warning signs relating to your focus and attention then video could be a potential culprit.
And I’m not innocent on this one. We cut out cable a few years ago, but I still get pulled into a video series on YouTube and a TV show on Netflix like many others.
Internet
Video is one aspect of using the Internet, but the Internet in general has been a new way that we spend our time in the last few years. 20 years ago, the Internet didn’t really exist for the regular person. That’s kind of crazy to think about even for someone that is 30 or 40 years old. If you have an office job, a smartphone and a laptop you probably spend hours online each day. 20 years ago that number was probably 0.
We now spend 5.6 hours of our time online or with digital media. Note: there’s crossover between this stat and the one in the previous section.
One interesting note is that the original thought was that as we used smartphones more often that we would use laptops and desktop computers less. That’s not the case. In fact, we used regular computers as much or a bit more than ever before. And we are using mobile devices at an increasing rate.
So that time is coming from other places. Some is TV, but not much. It’s more likely things like reading, sports and other activities.
The Right Balance
I read Rod Stewart’s autobiography awhile back. He said that his father told him that everyone should have a 1) vocation 2) sport and 3) hobby. Between those three will be a balance of how much you should spend on each.
To that I would add that family and friends need to work into the balance. I think finding time to simply be mindful with your thoughts is important as well; time when you’re not really doing anything.
And we all need a good night’s sleep.
So even with those things in our lives the day can get pretty full. It’s crazy to think that we can add more entertainment and more content into our lives without taking energy away from what’s really important to us (sleep, family, work, hobbies, etc.).
The takeaway from this post is to setup warning signs in your life. Are there areas where you should be focusing more? If you’re noticing warning signs then it’s time to assess how you use your focus and attention each day. Find the areas where you can take focus away and use that energy somewhere that is better served.
