As I write this post, I am surrounded by white noise and the inspiring beauty of countless ocean waves washing over the sand. This environment is a boon to my well-being, naturally generating feelings of awe and contentment. In addition, there’s a less obvious but no less important impact of these sights and sounds.

In my last post, Don’t Read This. Unless …, I suggested that attention is a valuable, but limited resource. Over time, regardless of what we are doing, our concentration wanes and performance declines.

Fortunately, however, attention is renewable.

Kate Lee and her colleagues from the University of Melbourne asked research subjects to concentrate on a boring and menial task that involved hitting certain keys when specific numbers flashed on the computer screen. (I bet you are glad you weren’t a participant in this experiment.) After engaging in this task for five minutes, the subjects were given a 40-second break. During the break, an image of a rooftop surrounded by buildings appeared on each subject’s screen. Half of the subjects saw a plain concrete roof; while the other half viewed a roof covered with a green, flowering meadow.  

After this brief interlude, the subjects went back to their keyboards. During this second trial, concentration levels fell by 8 percent among individuals who saw the concrete roof; while the concentration level of the group members who saw the green roof rose by 6 percent. Lee observes: “Our findings suggest that engaging in these green micro-breaks—taking time to look at nature through the window, on a walk outside, or even on a screen saver—can be really helpful for improving attention and performance in the workplace.”[1],[2]

Nature has a natural restorative effect that contributes to our well-being[3] and, importantly, renews our capacity to focus our attention leading to better performance.

So the next time you feel your concentration and performance beginning to fade, take a break—open pictures of your last trip to the beach, look out a window at the green space below, or take a walk in the nearest park. Then, return to what you were doing and see if you aren’t more focused, efficient, and productive.

Give yourself a break—your well-being and performance depend on it.

Now back to enjoying the beach.


[1] Torres, N. (2015). Gazing at nature makes you more productive: An interview with Kate Lee. Harvard Business Review, 93(9), 32-33.

[2] Lee, K.E., et al. (2015). 40-second green roof views sustain attention: The role of micro-breaks in attention restoration. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 42, 182-189.

[3] Gillis, K., & Gatersleben, B. (2015). A review of psychological literature on the health and wellbeing benefits of biophilic design. Buildings, 5, 948-963.

Attention is a valuable, yet limited, resource in the workplace.

Because we live in an information age—a mountain of data assaults us each day. As I write these words, my phone alerts me that new emails and text messages are filling my inbox. This crush of input quickly overwhelms our limited capacity to attend to and process all that is bombarding our senses. It’s too much—we simply can’t pay attention to it all.

What is required is a filter to focus our attention on what’s important and quickly pass over what’s not.

A recent article in the Academy of Management Journal describes both the opportunity and challenge of allocating our attention wisely in an age of information excess: “The growing ubiquity of information provides unprecedented opportunities—for learning, creativity, and innovation, as well as for performance. Understanding how to leverage these possibilities becomes an important challenge for management research and practice. However, the abundance of information also implies increasing competition for the attention of individuals, groups, and organizations; increasing potential for information overload to fuel biases in decision making; increasing costs of collecting, storing, and sharing information; and an increasing risk that all this information becomes a distraction from more relevant information or indeed from the job itself. Thus, a key challenge in the information age is to manage this wealth of available information and channel it to productive ends.” (p.649)[1]

So don’t read this post, unless …

… you have the margin and are in the right environment to give this article your undivided attention. Multitasking is overrated; it dilutes attention and often hurts performance. If the information requesting an audience isn’t worth your undivided attention, than you shouldn’t bother. If you don’t have the margin or inclination to focus your attention at a particular moment in time, don’t.

… you have the energy. Attention to a particular task declines over time because our capacity to focus fatigues. When we are tired, it’s difficult to concentrate and we are less effective. So if you don’t have the energy, take a break and refocus when you are able to give your best effort—a well-timed break adds to efficiency and enhances problem solving.

... it’s the best use of your time and attention. Attention is too precious to waste. Concentrate on the information that best serves you and your business. While this may seem like sound advice and a noble goal, in practice it’s difficult to execute well. We are easily distracted by social media or the latest workplace distraction. Further, we may avoid important data because it challenges our assumptions and is contrary to our biases. Or we may avoid the issues and decisions that are too hard, while sticking with the familiar. So, spend wisely. Focus on what’s most relevant to your success, tackling high-yield activities that add the most value.

Consider taking an inventory of how you invest your attention. At the end of your workday, take a minute to reflect on the information that captured your interest. In your mind, rewind your day, dividing it into discrete segments. Then recall what you focused on during each of these segments. Based on what you learn from these moments of reflection, consider the following questions: “Did I spend my attention well?” Did I focus on information that wasn’t helpful?” and “How could I better steward my attention tomorrow?”

I trust this post was worth your attention.



[1] The Editors (2015). Information, attention, and decision-making. Academy of Management Journal, 58(3): 629-657.