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Glossary of Focus terms
FOCUS TERMS
Attention residue
Attention residue is the term for when your brain keeps thinking about a previous task even after you’ve switched to a new one.
Originally coined by Dr. Sophie Leroy, who noticed that this residue is especially large if the first task is unresolved. The reason for this is that each work task comes nested in a context –task-specific information about the objectives, meaning, and information which is relevant to the expected outcomes. These details need to be loaded up by the brain, which takes time, but they also need to be unloaded when we switch, which also takes time. As this doesn’t happen simultaneously, a ‘residue’ of attention from the old task is left when we start a new task.
When we extrapolate this across a typical day for a knowledge worker, there may be attention residue from multiple sources. (As I write this, I notice my mind is ‘recovering’ from leaving my children a message, and prior to that from making plans for some business travel.) When we juggle multiple mental contexts simultaneously, we can overload working memory which leads to reduced performance and mental fatigue.
Attention residue theory helps explain why we make more mistakes when context switching,
Attention residue theory helps explain why performance suffers after context switching: when people move from one task to another, part of their attention can remain attached to the previous task, reducing their cognitive availability for the next one.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597809000399?via%3Dihub
What’s more, the more unfinished or emotionally charged the previous task, the stronger the residue. For example, a critical e-mail form your boss will have a stronger attention residue, and make it harder to switch onto a new task.
Attention residue can therefore be classified as a form of internal distraction from the task at hand.
How to counter attention residue:
1. Make it easy to resume
Before finishing working on a task, write a quick note about what you were working on before switching to a new task. This lets the brain both find a conclusion to what it was doing, which is satisfying, and pick up where it left off when it is time to start the task again. For example:
I just started a list of how to counter attention residue. Next go through the rest of the list and create quick examples of what someone might do in each case.
2. Take Short Breaks Between Tasks
Short breaks help the brain to disengage from the previous task so that it can engage in the next task. That’s why techniques like the Pomodoro method can be helpful, because they combine focus with recovery.
What kind of breaks work best?
A break can be anything – taking a few minutes to stretch, go on a walk, or even a different task if it can be easily completed.
However beware – even some recovery activities may cause attention residue. For example, checking your fantasy football team, texting your Partner, reading the news or making a meal can all cause attention residue. And definitely social media….
Therefore try to find activities where you have a high degree of control and which quiet the mind rather than stimulate it.
3. Break bigger tasks down to ‘next actions’
Anyone who knows how satisfying it is to cross a task off a to-do list, knows that the mind likes the sense of completing an action. It is, essentially, a psychological reward. Once a task is complete, it should be easier to switch to the next topic. Therefore make sure your to-do list is full of ‘next actions’ as in David Allen’s Getting Things Done.
4. Batch Similar Tasks Together
Sometimes there will be short tasks that, regardless of subject, need knocking out, such as emails or admin tasks. Task batching can help here because it lets the brain remain active within the same context from task to task. The more similar the tasks being batched, the less attention residue….
Context switching
The big one….Originally a term from computer science, in humans, the term is used to describe the (increasingly common) situation where we switch from one task to another.
Unlike computers, humans pay a cost in terms of the effort and time taken to complete a task as we struggle to ‘unload and reload’ the context.
Context switching leads to significant reductions in productivity, with .
Studies show that nearly everyone performs worse when context switching and when they do not, they compensate through longer hours and more stress. Over half of workers feel overwhelmed by persistent notifications, contributing to stress and reduced focus.
One study showed that it takes an average of 23 minutes to regain focus after a significant interruption. Other studies – and indeed my own experience – has shown it takes a bit less than that (one study showed it takes an average of 9.5 minutes to fully return to productive workflow after switching between digital applications), but it is still costly.
What’s more, context switching has become the norm in organisations, with employees toggling between applications nearly . This is mainly driven by back-to-back meetings, multiple technologies that prioritise speed of response over quality, and a culture that sees longer hours as indicators of high performance.
Another driver is our own inability to focus for long: Knowledge workers spend less than three minutes on a task before switching, leading to fragmented attention.
The cost of context switching is often hidden, but studies repeatedly show that organisations and individuals are paying a price when they do it.
Experiential avoidance (EA)
The most important psychological effect you’ve never heard of.
Imagine sitting down to write a report, and the first thing you feel is a pang of anxiety because you know your boss wants it urgently. What do you do next?
You check your emails, of course. Firing off a few quick replies feels good, and switching to emails brings an immediate feeling of relief…which creates an irresistible reinforcement loop.
Anything where we are reinforced in the short term is likely to be repeated (this is, after all, the driving force behind addictions). Therefore, experiential avoidance is extremely common and an extremely powerful derailer of human performance (and health).
Tackling procrastination and EA is generally not a question of being more focused or disciplined…here are some things that work better.
How to counter EA:
1. Strengthen the ‘why’ behind the task in hand
Resist the temptation to dive into work, and instead spend a few minutes prioritising tasks by importance, not just urgency. Why are you doing this task?
All important tasks should be linked to an objective in your annual / quarterly plan so that there’s a clear line of sight between your big picture goals and the action you’re working on.
Strengthening the ‘why’ can help pull your mind past the short term gains it will get from EA.
2. Acceptance
In order to do anything hard, we need to be willing to experience emotions or thoughts that attempt to hook us away from that task…
For example, if I feel anxious when writing a report because I’m worried I will do a bad job, then unless I am willing to feel anxious then my only other option is to remove it – and stopping the activity usually works!
Think of this as the admission price for anything meaningful in life, not just Deep Work.
The late Queen once said ‘grief is the price of love’. And as in most things, the Queen was right.
Procrastination
Procrastination is defined as ‘putting something off intentionally that should be done’. It often shows up as putting some difficult task off until later, despite knowing it will cause stress or negative consequences.
It is often seen as a personal failing, but there are often good psychological reasons behind it and understanding these can help us tackle it.
One of the most important reasons we procrastinate is energy conservation.
If we are depleted after, say, a day of back-to-back meetings, we may well procrastinate over a complex task because we lack the mental energy to tackle it. In this context procrastination can even be seen as a smart choice.
Another reason for procrastination is experiential avoidance. That is, the human tendency to avoid difficult feelings in the short term, even if this creates difficulties in the long term…
Zeigarnik effect
Related to attention residue, the Zeigarnik effect was the result of a series of experiments which showed that our brains tend to remember incomplete tasks much better than completed ones. In fact, unfinished tasks are 80% more memorable than finished tasks.
Which is kind of depressing when you think about it…
How to counter the Zeigarnik effect:
- The same techniques that counter attention residue work here.
- In addition, consider creating weekly review of completed work, highlighting aspects that went well (think Ta-dah lists) and storing any successes (e.g. complimentary emails or metrics).