[Ailist] Lost in the Crowd - NYTimes.com (power of attention)

[Bruce Elkin]

> Hi, Bruce. I have not read OUTLIERS and also have it on order. I'm looking
> forward to the reading. What I liked about the Brooks column was what he said
> about attention. More about attention:
> 
> ... [William] James believed that the transition from youthful distraction to
> mature attention was in large part the result of personal mastery and
> discipline‹and so was illustrative of character. ³The faculty of voluntarily
> bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again,² he wrote, ³is the
> very root of judgment, character, and will.²
> 
> Rest here:
> 
> http://westallen.typepad.com/idealawg/2008/12/many-lawyers-pride-themselves-on
> -their-multitasking-prowess-isnt-the-value-of-multitasking-a-myth.html
> 
> Or just go to the latest post at http://www.idealawg.net
> 
> What are your thoughts about attention? 
> 
> Stephanie


Hi Stephanie, et alŠ
I think attention (or ³focus²) is critical in creating results, especially
at high levels. 

In the arts, sports, professions, writing Š the ability to sustain focus, to
pay attention for long periods of time is critical.
In spiritual approaches such as meditation or contemplative prayer or yoga,
the ability to focus is key -- ³voluntarily bringing back a wandering
attention, over and over again.²  This is where the 10,000 hours notion
comes from.  Originally from research on chess masters, and more recently
the research Davidson did on the Dalai Lama¹s monks, where he found that
monks who scored off the scale for ³compassion² had developed aspects of the
frontal lobes that most of us don¹t have.  But only those who sat in
mediation ‹ paid attention ‹ for 10,000 hours or more.

In my work with clients, I can almost always tell within the first two weeks
who will succeed and won¹t by looking at the amount of focus they bring, and
the amount of practice time they put in.  Those who practice produce
results, those who don¹t get lots of good ideas, and plenty of frustration.
It is focus that helps us go from generic ideas to clear visions of desired
results.  And an integrated kind of attention that helps us see the steps
(process) and results (end) in focus at the same time.

Attention, and the capacity to focus are key to success in anything, I¹d
say.

Cheers!
Bruce
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