I came across this NT Times article link, as posted by Stoye Bowd originally here. It links very closely with the idea of Mindfulness which I have been learning about now for the past 3-4 months. It’s an ongoing process, and also links well with what Col recently said at the Ergo blog. Many links, but great reading.
I think in business and life in general we need to be more aware of how we use our time…not in the normal sense (i.e – the Time is Money idiom so prevalent as eluded to in the Stowe Boyd link), but in the sense of how we focus our thinking and self to be more in the current time. This paragraph was especially relevant…
“Studies have shown the alarming extent of the problem: office workers are no longer able to stay focused on one specific task for more than about three minutes, which means a great loss of productivity. The misguided notion that time is money actually costs us money.”
I am surprised it is as high as 3 minutes. Especially in open offices. Sometimes, I think that environment can render the brains thinking process into something like this…We need to think constantly about, well, our thinking!
The Squiggly Line 
I’m curious where the 3 minutes comes from – I find that yes it is easy to get distracted and rapidly refocus from one thing to another but once you get in the Flow of things you might go anything from 10 minutes to hours and hours before stopping.
Yeah, I’m familiar with the concept of flow. Daniel Goleman speaks about it being the point at which the brain is working at minimum energy levels, and yet creating maximujm output. That is why we generally enjoy things we are best at, because we naturally enter into a state of flow when doing it.
The 3 minutes comes from the NY Times article I refered to in the post. It credits it to ‘studies’ so take that to mean what you will. 🙂