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An Attention Quick-Fix Everyone Needs and Can Do
Attention requires a bit of its own and research has found a way to give it the priming it needs in one easy step.
Over the past century, coffee breaks in corporations all over the country have been viewed as a means of providing workers with energizing stimulants, such as coffee, to increase productivity. Not everyone agrees with this corporate approach to creativity and worker production. But there is one ingredient in these breaks, that few have recognized until research began on it.
Now we understand that there is great utility in breaking up any prolonged activity, whether at work or in some creative effort, and proceeding in a chunking manner. A great example of this is the Pomodoro Effect or Technique (whichever you wish), which has specifically timed breaks after discrete 20–25 minute periods of intense work. Where did the name come from? The man who devised the technique used a timer in the shape of a tomato, so he named it accordingly.
We know that chunking is a good means to aid in our memory, but now we also know that breaking up work activity into discrete periods of time (chunks) separated by small periods of rest is highly effective in maintaining creativity and attention. New research is addressing this issue, and it is providing a simple, quick way for all of us to increase our attention.
