I met Michael near the end of the summer as I prepared to speak at a financial firm.  The event was being simulcast—shown live in six different office locations across the country—and Michael was responsible for the video and phone hookups to the various sites during the presentation. I had sent the PowerPoint for my program prior to the session, and Michael had previewed it as he loaded it into their system for the event.  

The Rationalization:

“I’m looking forward to your speech,” Michael said as he helped me put on the microphone and test its sound. “We have several of these multi-location presentations each week and, in order for them to go smoothly, I have to pay attention to a number of different things at once.”

I told him how I could see that would be true.

“The problem is,” he said, “that when I need to focus on one thing rather than several, I can’t seem to get my mind to do it. It is like I’m incapable of focusing on one thing at a time.”

Have you ever felt like Michael?

The Diagnosis:

I’m not sure when it happened, but sometime in the past 15-20 years, it became a de facto truth that multitasking was the way to manage. Juggling several tasks at once is now the way to keep up with the vast amount of information through which we are expected to sort at faster and faster rates.  Multitasking is seen as the key to tackling all the new ways we are connecting—and communicating—through technology. 

As we’ve embraced multitasking in our personal and professional lives, the consequences to our ability to focus are getting harder and harder to ignore.   Multitasking requires that we skim the surface of things—comprehending only what we need to know at that moment, so we can cross it off the list.  Over time, we have conditioned ourselves to avoid concentrating on any one task and have trained ourselves to quickly switch our attention from one to another. The result is that we can’t apply our focus in one area for extended periods of time.

The Ritual:

While we waited for the presentation to start, I told Michael that focus can be trained just like any other muscle. I walked him through a breathing exercise that we have on our website.  Michael was amazed at how this simple, but powerful, technique helped him take control of his attention.

I shared with him the research that says that small amounts of meditation can improve cognitive capacity and functioning. He decided he would take for one to three minutes before each meal to focus on his breathing. He believed the meal itself would be a reminder, and it seemed like a natural time for him to clear his mind.

I saw Michael this past week when he was assigned to the Audio Visual team for another one of the company’s leadership conferences in which I had been asked to participate.

“I’m so glad to see you,” he said.  “I want you to know that your suggestion really helped me.”

He said he noticed a difference in his ability to focus just a couple of weeks after starting his breathing ritual.  In fact, he called on the breathing exercise to help him focus. “When I’m faced with something that I need to pay close attention to,” he explained, “I close my eyes and take some deep breaths to collect my attention.  When I open my eyes, I’m able to focus more intently and for longer periods of time than I ever was before.”

Can you use the breathing exercise to help improve your ability to focus?