An article I shared a few months back made the following observation about why the author believes he lost focus and concentration:
"My brain (apparently) doesn’t handle frequent context switches well. Moreover, my brain must have unconsciously perceived distractions as something positive – and, like Pavlov’s dog, kept wanting more of them, at increasingly shorter intervals."
He's talking about the experiments of psychologist Ivan Pavlov which
Wikipedia explains:
"Pavlov presented a stimulus (e.g. the sound of a metronome) and then gave the dog food; after a few repetitions, the dogs started to salivate in response to the stimulus. Pavlov concluded that if a particular stimulus in the dog's surroundings was present when the dog was given food then that stimulus could become associated with food and cause salivation on its own."
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This is an important factor to consider.
Are we sometimes doing things that we believe we enjoy and give us refreshment and recreation, but in reality are causing us to lose focus? Social media, of course, would be the biggest culprit. But what about things like checking on the latest 'breaking news' updates, or continuing a comment thread/debate, or checking the latest sports scores?
We might perceive these as 'enjoyable' and 'just taking a break', but maybe it's more harmful than we realize. Definitely something to ponder if we feel like our level of productivity is waning over time.
Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!
