How distracted are we at work?

Distractions at work are at an epidemic high.

IT is surprisingly magnifying the problem.

All this is causing a Big Hit on Productivity.

Attention meltdown is the new workplace epidemic. People working across corporate jobs aren’t equipped with the understanding of the concept of attention, how to manage it and how to manage their working environments and temperaments to get the better of it.

Neuroscience has been successful in explaining these raging questions around attention. Research can now show how the brain gets attentive and how individuals can use it to their competitive advantage. Let’s delve deeper into neuroscience to create competitive advantage at workplaces.

What is Attention?

Attention is the ability to identify and concentrate on a relevant stimuli. Attention is the cognitive process that makes it possible to position oneself towards relevant stimuli and consequently respond to them. It’s been categorized in various formats over the years.

• First, attention can be more or less selective. Selective attention refers to focus on a specific task, object, or stimulus amidst a wide range of inputs. Non-selective attention is related to effort or arousal for producing and maintaining a high level of performance in a broad range of tasks.
• Second, attention can be categorised depending upon the cause behind its generation. Attention can be drawn by the physical salience of a stimulus such as an abrupt flash or sharp sound (bottom-up attention), or it can be driven by internal factors under voluntary control such as searching for a particular thing (top-down)
• Third, attention is also categorised basis the sensory inputs linked to it. It can be of two types - overt attention, when it is a detectable movement giving input to a sensory structure, such as the eye - covert attention, when attention shifts with no outward movement.
• Finally, attention can be directed to spatial coordinates or to sensory input, such as colour, tone, or odour.

Neurobiology of Attention

Going to the depths of the biology behind it, prefrontal cortex is the key organ behind our attention. It’s what enables us to selectively focus on something. It’s interesting to see multiple organs and systems working together for arousing the state of attention. Other brain systems that impact attention include:

• State of arousal: Being alert or lethargic determines if we can control our attention or if our mind is unable to stay still and keeps navigating across topics
• Limbic System: Various parts of the brain that deal with emotion help bring attention. For example, emotions like fear or excitement gather attention more easily than neutral objects or topics
• Motor orientation: Closer our sensory receptors are to the source of stimulation, easier it is to pay attention
• Internal thoughts: Internally generated lapses in attention are activated by the medial prefrontal cortex, which’s triggered by thoughts of ourselves and of other people

In the next article we will see how we can leverage neuroscience to build attention and develop a competitive advantage at our workplace.