Andy Lykens

Innovating and operating through growth

attention

Focus

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Our attention is limited by time, the nature of the mind, and by our choice of focus.

The more we focus on one thing, the less likely we are to notice another. Whether it’s doomscrolling, writing a memo, or churning something over in our head, our focus can be both productive and a distraction.

You don’t have to be absent-minded to miss something. It doesn’t mean you’re not smart if you have to re-read something after you catch your mind wandering. We all have limited time, limited capacity, and we need to focus to get things done.

Just remember: while you focus on one thing, you ignore another. So every now and then make sure to take a step back and make sure that whatever it is you’re ignoring, is by your own choice of focus.

Emergencies and habits

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Spending time at the dentist isn’t a fun past-time; you don’t go if you don’t have to and if you could avoid it, you would. But when your tooth hurts, the only thing on your mind is how soon you can get to your dentist’s office. Luckily, most of us have learned that habitual attention can help us avoid emergencies.

If people aren’t paying attention to you, it isn’t because you’re not important — it’s because you’re not important to them right now. Hopefully you’ve done the hard work of helping them instill good habits when you’re not top of mind.

Send another email

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It’s important to you, this message you’ve crafted. The attention you want.

You’ve thought about just the right thing to say – it isn’t too long, or too short.

The timing has to be right, because the data shows that the best time to send an email is at 4am on Tuesday. Of course only suckers do that because everyone is sending their email at that time – so you’ll do it Wednesday.

Sending this email is work. It’s productivity. It’s marketing. It means you’ll be busier, and busier means you’re doing your job well.

The email is saying “there, I tried – I thought a lot about it too. I did it at the time I was supposed to, at just the right length. Just like everyone does.”

So you click send. And then you wait.

You wait because you don’t know the person on the other side or what they care about. But I’ll give you a hint: it probably isn’t getting more email from strangers.