There is an old saying that goes like this; “out of the mouths of babes, oft times come gems,” which essentially means that children have been known to say insightful things. Recently, my
Recently, my eight-year-old son and I took advantage of a beautiful day to take the dog for a long walk. During our walk, the subject of the previous night’s basketball practice arose.
My son was describing strategies, positions, reactive strategies, and many other pieces of information about how the game of basketball is played.
My son was describing strategies, positions, reactive strategies, and many other pieces of information about how the game of basketball is played. After about 20 minutes of chatter about such things, peppered with my questions, I said, “Wow, Logan! You really have to keep a lot of things in mind at the same time. I don’t know how you remember all of that in the midst of a game.”
His answer certainly surprised me. “Well, mom,” said Logan, “you see, it’s really easy. You know your brain, it’s pretty big. So what I do when I have a game or practice is, I bring all the basketball stuff to the front of my brain. I take all the other stuff out, and shove it to the back of my brain, so it doesn’t get in the way.”
I asked him, “How do you do that?” The answer was, “Well, I just focus really hard on what I am doing – it gets easier to just pull it (the basketball “stuff) to the front after you practice it for a while. Then, you just play basketball and everything is clear.”
Did my son just describe the concept of attention density in an amazingly simple story?
What we choose to focus on is where the increased density of our attention occurs. It’s no secret that allowing ourselves to be distracted by emails, texts, phone, or meetings can impact our ability to be productive and make decisions.
Neuroscience research shows that we actually can make circuitry changes in the brain with our thinking patterns. Attention density is a way of focusing on something to come to a decision or increased clarity.
A simple example of this is the experience we often have after we purchase a new car, or even a new cellphone. Suddenly, we see our exact same car or cell phone everywhere, because now we are paying attention to that item.
What we choose to focus on is where the increased density of our attention occurs. It’s no secret that allowing ourselves to be distracted by emails, texts, phone, or meetings can impact our ability to be productive and make decisions. Neuroscience research shows that we actually can make circuitry changes in the brain with our thinking patterns. Attention density is a way of focusing on something to come to a decision or increased clarity. A simple example of this is the experience we often have after we purchase a new
How might this idea of attention density impact how we design learning materials? For that matter, how might it impact the way we allow our teams to structure their day? The idea of time for reflection and focus during our work and learning processes is where I see the potential for increasing attention density.
To learn more about the fascinating research on neuroscience and attention density and its implications for business, innovation and leadership, access the Neuroleadership Institute. For myself, when I find myself needing to focus, I now mentally picture myself pulling information to the front of my brain, and shoving the irrelevant information “to the back.”
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