Boy have things changed. I remember the days in meetings where the facilitator would say, “Please only leave the room during breaks, so you can remain focused.” Gone are those days. I now attend most of my meetings online where the request has grown to “Please close the tabs that are open on your laptop, turn off all notifications, silence or turn of your phone, close your Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, Snapchat, Pintrest….” The list goes on. Geez…do we have enough distractions?
Our attention span has grown shorter, and with or without all the distractions it is harder to stay focused. A study by Microsoft Corp. found that the average attention span has dropped from twelve seconds down to eight seconds. Yes, we now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. I wonder who conducted the study on the attention span of goldfish?
With all the different applications, media and sources of information coming at us, it is much easier to be distracted. In fact, since I started writing this, I have receiving multiple notifications of texts and emails coming in, and it’s only been a few minutes.
So knowing that you are probably off thinking about something else, I’ll cut this short. Stay tuned.