Is your attention span similar to flipping through TV stations? Are thoughts racing, fast and ever-flowing? If so, you may have what some call a ‘short attention span’ – that is, your attention is constantly drawn to every thought or distraction and remains on any one subject for a short amount of time. This article is not written in judgement – I have this issue myself! Guess what? Over the years, I really haven’t changed either. While meditation, concentration and a healthy lifestyle do help with focus and mental performance, much of who we are and how are brain works is given to us at birth. Just as a sailboat is designed to use the wind to its’ advantage, regardless of the direction it’s blowing, we can adapt to our short attention span and in some cases, use our short attention spans to our advantage! This article is all about managing projects with a short attention span, and some techniques and habits we can use to overcome it.
What Is Considered A Short Attention Span?
I am not a psychologist or mental health professional. In this article, I either write from my personal experience or present evidence from more credible sources.
As far as the average person’s attention span, Healthline reports that the average person spends nearly half of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing. In other words, their minds are elsewhere for 30 out of any 60 minutes.
Healthline reports there to be many causes for a short attention span, ranging from ADHD, depression, learning disabilities and more. In any case, though, many people struggle with SOME form of short attention span.
My own personal experiences with having trouble paying attention are as follows. Perhaps you can relate to a few of these:
- Thoughts Racing From One Topic To The Next.
- Ideas Or Thoughts “Popping Into My Mind” While Trying To Focus On Something Else.
- Working On A Task, Then Needing To Reference Something Else & Getting Caught Up In It. Example: While Writing A Letter, I’ll Need To Reference An Email. Next Thing You Know, I Find Myself Responding To Another Email & Organizing Them, When I’m Actually Supposed To Be Writing The Letter.
- Finding Myself Trailing Off Mentally While Working On A Task For A Long Time. While Working On A Task That Takes Several Hours, My Focus On The Task Diminishes As Time Goes By.
As you can imagine, managing projects with a short attention span presents a whole host of challenges. Let’s get into the specifics on how someone with a short attention span can manage projects successfully.
Managing Projects With A Short Attention Span: Top Tips
Luckily, a project manager gets to work on all parts of a project – scheduling, planning, billing, budgeting, communicating, strategizing and taking care of the day to day needs. This can be a blessing or a curse for someone with a short attention span.
On one hand, project managers with short attention spans won’t get too bored spending time on any one task, since they’re involved in so many aspects.
On the other hand, a project manager must see that tasks actually GET DONE. When our minds are flipping from one topic to the next, though, it’s easy to end up with a variety of tasks that are only partially complete. For a project manager, incompleteness means failure.
Without further ado, here are our top tips for managing projects with a short attention span! These techniques are specifically designed to either mitigate the risk of a short attention span or to take advantage of ever-changing thoughts:
- Keep Your To Do List Regularly Updated
- Create A Schedule For Yourself
- Write Down Ideas As They Come To You
- Work In Shorter Bursts & Take Breaks
- Create Agendas For Meetings & Discussions
- Focus On Completing Tasks 100% Before Moving On
For more information on each one of these methods, scroll to read more!
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1. Keep Your To Do List Regularly Updated
To do lists are like checkpoints, landmarks and lighthouses – they help us keep our entire journey on track. Keeping a to do list updated regularly as a project manager is essential when battling a short attention span.
My favorite practice is to create an overall “status list” and update it every week. This is a list where I record every task or assignment I have on my plate, the latest status and the next step. Here are a few other techniques that I incorporate:
- Break tasks down into the smallest possible step. This can be making a phone call, sending an email or downloading/organizing documents.
- Put a completion date on the list for every task.
- Separate tasks by priority.
- I also note if it’s a task I can do from the phone vs laptop and at the office vs. remotely.
The to-do list is the latest snapshot of your workload as a whole, along with the status of each tasks and when it needs to be done. When updated routinely, it’s the perfect tool for managing projects with a short attention span.
2. Create A Schedule For Yourself
When our attention spans are short, our minds are constantly being drawn in different directions. This is why having a schedule for ourselves is vital in staying focused.
Much like the ‘status update’ to-do list from above, a schedule is a roadmap to follow. Creating a schedule for your day – EVERY DAY – is vital for staying focused.
There are a few ways to do this. You can write a list of every task and order it from most to last important. You can also break down the day into 30 minute intervals and block out time for every task you need to get done.
Knowing what you need to work on and where you need to be at any given time is vital for staying on track when you have a short attention span!
3. Write Down Ideas As They Come To You
The beauty of having a short attention span as a project manager? We have all sorts of thoughts all the time! It’s what we do with them that matters.
With a short attention span, ideas are objects floating by in an endless stream. They’re always flowing and never-ending, but if you don’t wade in and pull the stuff to shore, it’s going to float away!
I personally do a few things. If I’m actively working on a task and a great idea pops up, I’ll jot it down on my latest to do list. That way it’s there for me when I regroup next.
I also send myself emails from my phone when I’m out and about. The next time I review my emails I’ll be able to see it. Speaking of emails…
Whenever I review emails and a new to-do item pops up, I make notes on the to-do list. That way everything stays in one place at all times.
Managing projects with a short attention span is a pain, but if we can harness and capture the ideas that flow through our minds, we can actually take advantage of them!
4. Work In Shorter Bursts & Take Breaks
When we think about doing anything for an extended period of time, it seems taxing. Climbing 10 flights of stairs seems daunting. In reality, it’s simply taking one step at a time, over and over again. You can focus on climbing one flight, then taking a break, it doesn’t seem so bad. The same can be said for working as a project manager.
One technique I’ve used could be referred to as the 50:10 rule. I focus as hard as I can on my work for 50 minutes straight, then take a 10 minute break. This can be for food, the bathroom or just doing something mindless like browsing the internet or stretching. I do it on the hour, every hour. When the clock strikes #:50, I know it’s break time.
It seems strange to declare 10 minutes of break during every one hour of work, but I guarantee most people spend more time on social media, the internet and talking with others than that when it’s done so unregulated.
Working in shorter bursts and taking breaks makes focusing on our work more manageable.
5. Create Agendas For Meetings & Discussions
Short attention spans will go wherever the hypothetical wind blows them. This is why it’s necessary that project managers with short attention spans have a plan to follow at all times. Meetings and discussions are no different.
It’s easy to drift off on a tangent during a conversation. In a meeting setting, we all have the desire to vocalize our thoughts. The problem is, some of these thoughts aren’t totally necessary to the discussion.
Some people with short attention spans have trouble keeping a conversation on track. This is where meeting agendas help out a huge amount. For example, meetings that follow agendas are as much as 80% shorter than meetings with no structure. Despite this, only about 1/3rd of meetings actually have an agenda.
With a short attention span, an agenda helps us extract the most value from meetings and scheduled conversations.
PROMOTED
6. Focus On Completing Tasks 100% Before Moving On
Do you ever feel like you’ve got a million tasks half-completed on your project? I know this feeling well. It can make us feel like we’re making progress and that we’re lost at the same time. It also is a ‘fundamental project failure’ to not be getting tasks to 100% completion.
I don’t mean that the person is a failure or even failing the project as a whole. By definition, a project manager is supposed to get the project to the finish line. Anything not completed on time makes the project late. Therefore, projects that aren’t getting finished are failing.
What I’m calling a task can be pretty small. As we stated earlier, tasks on the to-do list should be broken down as small as possible. Easy, right? In turn, we must make sure we actually do get that task completely done when we’re working on it.
A general best practice for managing projects with a short attention span is to complete tasks 100% before moving on from them!
In Summary
Working as a project manager isn’t easy, and managing projects with a short attention span is even harder. With a shift in mentality and some specific tactics, project managers that have trouble focusing can still find success and use their unique ‘ability’ to their advantage! I hope you’ve found this article helpful and informative. Thanks for reading!
