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The Impoverishment of Attention
Inner, other and outer focus
We need three kinds of focus:
- Inner focus guides our values and decisions.
- Other focus smooths our relationships with people.
- Outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world.
Attention works similar to a muscle - exercise it, and it will grow, neglect it, and it can wither. How we arrange our attention shapes our reality.
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Key Ideas
Inner, other and outer focus
We need three kinds of focus:
- Inner focus guides our values and decisions.
- Other focus smooths our relationships with people.
- Outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world.
Attention works similar to a muscle - exercise it, and it will grow, neglect it, and it can wither. How we arrange our attention shapes our reality.
Continual partial attention
We increasingly find it difficult to focus on the hear and now without checking our phones. We seem to go through life in a state of "continual partial attention." We're there but not aware of where we put our attention.
While modern technology has its advantages, our attention span is suffering. Teachers are noticing that current students find it hard to read books that previous students used to enjoy. Teachers think that students' ability to read has been compromised by short text messages and video games.
Two main varieties of distractions
- Sensory: We can more easily tune out from sensory distractions. For example, the feel of your tongue against your upper palate is an incoming stimuli your brain weeds out.
- Emotional distraction is more difficult to tune out. When you overhear someone mention your name, it's almost impossible to ignore.
Those who focus best are relatively immune to emotional disturbance.
We learn best with focused attention
As we read a book or blog, our mind constructs a mental model that helps us to make sense of what we are reading. If we can't focus, we'll have holes in our understanding.
To key to better understanding is deep reading and thinking. We can have great returns on all the information out there if we are willing to sit down and apply ourselves. Deep thought must be learned. To do that, we have to tune out most of the distractions and focus.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Innovation at work
When you look at great geniuses like Newton, for example, it can be easy to imagine that their ideas and work came exclusively out of their minds. But that is seldom how it works.
Innovatio...
Everyone gets a lift up
We get to see further than our predecessors, not because we have a greater vision or greater height, but because we are lifted on their gigantic stature.
There are giants in every field. Don't let them intimidate you. Take from anywhere that resonates with you and inspires or fuels your imagination. Build upon it and improve it. Doing this will make your work authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent.
The "Not invented here" syndrome
The syndrome can also show up as a reluctance to delegate work.
Creating a new solution may be more exciting, but new solutions create new problems.
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Risk Compensation
Risk protection is normally done to minimize the harm a particular activity can do to us. There are various things we do to reduce our risk, to make ourselves safer.
Behaviour scientists po...
Risk Compensation Effects
- When automobile safety laws were introduced, the drivers started taking more risks while driving, leading to more pedestrian accidents.
- Children (and even adults) take more physical risks while playing a sport with protective gear.
- Safety features like Anti-lock brakes in vehicles ended up increasing the accidents for taxi drivers in Germany
- Child-proof caps on medicine bottles made parents careless about their being opened by kids, including the ones which don’t have the safety feature.
The Carelessness Effect
Having a safety device in place, and armed with the knowledge that we can push the envelope a bit, the appetite for risk increases.
- People who have an emergency fund in place tend to be less careful about their investments.
- People wearing a face-mask in this global pandemic feel like they are safer in crowded places (It’s a face mask, not an Iron Man suit).
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"The core of the engineering mind-set is what I call modular systems thinking. It’s not a singular talent, b..."
Guru Madhavan
Thinking in Systems
It means to be able to break down a big system into its sections and putting it back together. The target is to identify the strong and weak links: how the sections work, don’t work, or could potentially work and applying this knowledge to engineer useful outcomes.
There is no engineering method, so modular systems thinking varies with contexts.
Fundamental Properties of the Engineering Mind-Set
- The ability to see a structure where there’s nothing apparent.
- Adeptness at designing under constraints.
- The capacity to hold alternative ideas in your head and make considered judgments.