The New York Times apparently wants us all to be more productive, since it’s hammering away at the subject from many fronts. In one article, Charlotte Lieberman tells us that procrastination isn’t about self-control but about negative emotions. In another, Adam Grant suggests that productivity isn’t about time management, but about attention.
Both articles circle around the same central idea: That our ability to get stuff done is deeply entangled with our emotional and attentional systems (yes, the “attentional system” is a thing, see below).
Lieberman points to research showing that procrastination is “about being more focused on ‘the immediate urgency of managing negative moods’ than getting on with the task…” She offers mindful/tactical approaches to reducing procrastination such as attending to the emotions behind your impulses, focusing only on the “next task” rather than the whole journey, and making your primary procrastination paths less convenient to you (more complex passwords on social media, for example).
Grant also considers attention as a path to increase output and avoid distracting sandtraps. But for him, it’s about finding the things that animate and activate you rather than hammering away at time management. “Prioritize the people and projects that matter,” he says, “and it won’t matter how long anything takes.” (To which I might say: It matters to your boss.)
Also worth noting is a recent study of trained musicians, which found that they have greater “executive control” of their attention than do non-musicians, suggesting that attention can be developed in meaningful and measurable ways. According to lead investigator Paulo Barraza, Ph.D.:
Professional musicians are able to more quickly and accurately respond to and focus on what is important to perform a task, and more effectively filter out incongruent and irrelevant stimuli than non-musicians. In addition, the advantages are enhanced with increased years of training…
All three articles focus on one aspect of the “attentional system,” the “executive control function,” which is “involved both in the suppression of irrelevant, distracting stimuli and in top-down attentional control.” The other two functions of the attentional system (the alerting function, which maintains our state of readiness for action, and the orienting function, which selects sensory information and shifts our attentional focus) are less affected by musical training.
For me, it’s useful to know there’s an executive control function related to my attention, and to know it’s in the middle of an emotional maze. It’s also useful to wonder how organizational leaders might make that maze a bit more navigable, or a bit less fraught, for all of the attentive humans working under their care.
I’ve been thinking a lot of late about the issues in this sentence: “Professional musicians are able to more quickly and accurately respond to and focus on what is important to perform a task, and more effectively filter out incongruent and irrelevant stimuli than non-musicians. In addition, the advantages are enhanced with increased years of training…”
It is only natural that classical musicians would have this capacity. From their earliest training they are taught to accept absolute authority (the conductor,) to accept steep hierarchies (each section of the orchestra has a pecking order,) and to always conform to the ensemble. It is, for example, the only art form in which marching (for wind and percussion players) is part of their education. They are literally conditioned by drill masters shouting commando language. The International Women’s Brass Conference even offers training sessions for auditioning for military bands. There are similarities in the regimented and authoritarian education of string players as well.
Would these authoritarian structures explain why classical music is the most conservative of the art forms?
Can you imagine offering this sort of regimented and authoritarian training to writers and painters? The quasi-militaristic social order of bands and orchestras condition people not to break ranks, to be good fucntionaires.
The characteristics in the quoted sentence can be useful for employers, since humans hired as labor are almost always to some extent objectified. In the simplest end result, they are fucntionaries that fulfill tasks.
As a perhaps useful thought experiment, one could also apply these characteristics to the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos–the mobile killings squads to exterminate Jews and communist leaders. They “quickly and accurately responded to and focused on what was important to perform a task, and more effectively filter out incongruent and irrelevant stimuli.” It was this capacity to quickly focus, and to ignore the “incongruent and irrelevant stimuli” (regardless of how horrific) that allowed them to be proper functionaries.
Has this sort of thinking affected the general character of our society? It might sound like an absurd comparison, but since WWII the US military has caused about 4 million illegal and unjustified deaths, mainly through the Vietnam and Second Iraq Wars. And yet we brush that horrific number aside with very little trouble and continue to “focus on what is important” without any distractions from such “incongruent and irrelevant stimuli.” Very few think about that horrific number at all. And even fewer get distracted by trying to do something about it. This habit of thought undistracted by “marginal unpleasantries,” might even be why we’ve ended up with such a fine President. No?
So do we really want arts leaders and employees who scrupulously think inside the box? Who never stray to the margins where they might get distracted by things they aren’t supposed to? Do we need arts organizations that keep an eye on the larger picture, and that are more willing to challenge the status quo in Trumpistan? Or shall they just march in step, and ignore the “incongruent and irrelevant stimuli” of the world around them?
“The other two functions of the attentional system (the alerting function, which maintains our state of readiness for action, and the orienting function, which selects sensory information and shifts our attentional focus) are less affected by musical training.”
I would guess that dance and theater training, particularly in improvisational skills, would be very useful in developing these aspects of the attentional system. I would love to see that research.
How cool to ponder on the expressive practices that might inform or inspire those three elements of the attentional system! I am intrigued.
In this sense of improv, it would be interesting to study the reactive differences between orchestra musicians who serve largely as functionaries for a conductor, and jazz musicians who improvise and are much more autonomous. The results, however, might be too complex to understand. Orchestra musicians have to react to each other very closely to suppress their individuality and remain in unison, like a school of fish or a flock of birds in flight. Their work is a complex mixture of specific attention and situational awareness. And even if jazz musicians improvise, they still all march to the same drummer, as it were.
We might have a tendency to overdraw conclusions studying the behavior of artists. As far as administration goes, the work of artists might serve better as metaphors rather than the source of actual empirical observation. Still, I don’t think we’re going to see musician styled drilled marching for writers and painters anytime soon.
Thanks, as usual, Andrew. I had read the procrastination article when it first appeared, but the others were new to me. Unlike Mr. Osborne, I focused on the positive aspects of attention, bringing back to mind a quote I have used for years (literally since before the book was published) in speeches on the value of the arts. (The spacing is mine.)
“On the periodic table of the heart,
somewhere between wonderon and unattainium,
lies presence,
which one doesn’t so much take
as steep in, like a romance,
and without which one can
live just fine,
but not thrive.”
– Diane Ackerman
THE HUMAN AGE
The World Shaped by Us WW Norton, 2014, page 199