Time and attention: THE soft skill of every knowledge worker
June 29, 2008 – 4:52 pmIn his talk, Time and Attention, Merlin Mann talks about being conscious of what grabs your attention, negotiating requests for attention, and communicating organization culture around communication.
I enjoyed the part about defaults. Simple tips for improving concentration:
- Configure your email client to not notify you when an email arrives.
- Configure your instant messenger to not notify you when anyone changes status.
- Change your browser’s home page to be something simple, something that does not display recent news, quizzes, weather, traffic, recent emails in a personal email account, recent blog posts. I prefer the fastest-loading option: about:blank, and I use Firefox’s built-in search.
I recently saw Merlin Mann speak at a OmniFocus meeting hosted by The Omni Group.
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