Focus: Hard to Sustain in Our Technology "Noisy" Environment

In a March 2, 2006 post on 43 Folders (a site focused on personal productivity that was dormant for a while and has only recently picked up activity), site owner Merlin Mann made the observation that "focus is cash in the economics of attention." He was commenting on a post by Annalee Newitz on her Web site about a study that concluded that attention overload leads to bad decisions (no kidding!). The really interesting thing about the study, as Newitz pointed out, was that "subjects who made incorrect decisions under 'noisy' conditions tended to have extremely high confidence that their decisions were right."

I have long been an opponent of multi-hour PowerPoint presentations because (a) they are used by speakers to attempt to control your attention and deliver information at their pace, and (b) they tend to waste time in delivering background information and short-sheet the time that should be spent working collaboratively on really tough problems. If you are going to trap me in a room for more than 30 minutes to read slides to me, I am going to get out my Blackberry in less than 10 minutes unless (a) you are speaking only to me or briefing me per my request* or (b) you have given me the slides in advance so I can read all the background material and we can "cut" to the conclusions and recommendations slides after I get my preliminary questions answered (to make sure I understand the main issue).