CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE? BY BEN HARPER
Whether it be the little red notification symbol on your phone or the digital billboard on the roadside, something or someone is always trying to grab your attention.
We are no longer used to paying attention on one thing at a time. Many of us believe ourselves to be effective multi taskers, and we may even be energised by the constant notifications and interruptions that modern life includes. But some now suggest that multi tasking is not humanly possible, and in fact all that we are really doing is ‘task switching’, something that is actually grossly inefficient rather than efficient.
ONE THING
Paying attention on one thing at a time is something we have to train our mind to do. In essence, this is what mindfulness is;
Paying
Attention
To
Just
One
Thing
The effects are known to be hugely beneficial, not just for getting stuff done more efficiently, but for our mental health and wellbeing. When we give our full attention to ‘just one thing’, we calm our brains and bodies, we learn the skill of focussing, we can develop an ‘attitude of gratitude’, we become better at discerning which thoughts and feelings to pay attention to, and which to let pass.
Being mindful doesn’t come naturally to us in the modern age. Technology developers and advertisers know what works when it comes to pulling our focus. So learning to being mindful, focusing on ‘just one thing’ will take some intention, and we may need some help.
Mindfulness may be familiar to you or it could be something you’re cynical about. It CAN involve candles, floaty music, and a softly spoken voice leading you through a meadow. But it can also be something you do at the bus stop, in the office, or in your kitchen.
It starts by becoming aware of the many thoughts, feelings, noises and tasks around you and choosing one thing, ‘just one thing’, to focus on.
We can mindful about things are unhelpful to us; worrying thoughts, uncomfortable feelings or an irritating noise. If we do this, we will simply turn the volume up on these things, and this wouldn’t be helpful. So instead, we choose to focus on something that is good or neither good or bad. And then we simply try and keep our focus there for a little bit longer.
Our brains WILL jump about and things around us WILL compete for our attention, and when this happens, we just notice it and gently bring our focus back to the ‘just one thing’. (someone once described to me by suggested it’s like gently and kindly bringing a puppy’s attention back when it wanders off).
Learning to be mindful is a skill that will develop the more we practise it. We’re training our brain to be less hyperactive and more focussed. It’s like a muscle that has to be grown.
Our video and audio resources this week are designed to give you an opportunity to practise being mindful, and so we encourage you to resist the urge to respond to that text message, email for just a few more moments and give them a go.
“There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.”
Lord Chesterfield to his son in 1970.