Are there any organizations not operating like this?
Some smaller organizations, typically in the tech sector, are experimenting with radical new workflows that are not built around unstructured communication. There’s no email, there’s no Slack, and it turns out that they’re doing really well. They use asynchronous scheduled, in-person, scrum-style meetings and custom-built project-management systems.
As a single person working within the system, how can I do more focused work?
The ability to focus is a skill. A lot of people incorrectly think of the ability to focus as a habit, like flossing their teeth. It’s something they know how to do, it’s just a matter of doing it more often. That’s not actually the case. If you’re not actively training your mind to be good at sustaining concentration, you’re not going to get nearly as much value out of your concentration session.
What are some ways you’ve trained yourself to focus?
I spent a lot of time on a training method called “productive meditation.” You go for a walk and your goal is to make progress on a single professional problem only in your head while you're walking. And just like mindfulness meditation, if you notice your attention wandering off that problem to think about other things, you have to bring your attention back to the problem.
I did that during a two year period. By the end, I was really adept at holding variables in my head and doing pretty complicated thinking, writing book chapters, and proof solving. I think of productive meditation like pull-ups: It’s really hard at first, but it gives you really big results.
Is it possible that you have a bigger capacity for concentrating than most people and that the average person, even with effort, can never learn to concentrate as well as you?
It’s definitely trainable. There’s obviously a natural threshold to how high you can go when you push concentration to your very peak—just like with various physical activities. But I don’t think most knowledge workers are anywhere near their natural peaks, because almost no one trains their ability to concentrate. I’m very optimistic: If you train, you will get big improvements.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.