Electronic Walkabout. No one should have to walk through life alone. We share the good times, the bad times and the best times. Everyone needs a little direction now and again. And TC and Maddog are here to show you the way. A podcast where we talk about the important things in life. Come journey with us. The Electronic Walkabout. Maddog, I have a challenge for you during this episode. Are you ready for this?

I am up for it. Yes.

Can you keep your focus?

Do my best.

You'll do your best. To be clear, this means giving your undivided attention to the task at hand. And easier said than done. Many of us get distracted easily and as soon as that happens, we are lost. And the effort to get back on path literally kills time and motivation. Keep your focus this episode as we explore how easy it is to lose focus with any task and some ways to keep on track.

Oh, look at the squirrel.

Oh, start. But first is always the thought for the day. In today's environment, you will never hear the words virtually impossible. In the virtual context tech, we have learned that anything is possible.

It is becoming scarier and scarier as the days go by with what AI can do and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah, I think perhaps maybe we need to do an episode on AI, but.

A couple of old guys talking about.

New technology, that's pretty scary, isn't it? So just we'll start like at the basics. But what is the importance of keeping.

Your folks assume it'd be multi leveled. It would be retaining information about the subject being studied or watched or expressed. It would be showing genuine care and interest if somebody was talking to you because you're actually, oh, you're talking about.

Your wife right now. When she's talked, you just say that.

She says, listen to this. Yes, but yeah, no, it's important to just I think everyday conversations that you're having with people because I know that I've had a couple conversations with people where you can almost see them check out from a conversation. Then you just think, why am I even bothering?

What's. It's true because. And one of, one of the challenges I would have is that even, even though I'm listening, maybe not actively to you, I'm hearing what you're saying, but I'm thinking about, oh, after this, I gotta go to do this. Got this on my mind. And so it's really important, especially if someone's having that conversation, that you actively listen to them. So. And I've kind of already suggested a way that we do lose our focus or why what are the reasons why we lose our focus?

I just think nowadays people can get easily distracted. Into your previous point. There's so many things going on in a day. Sometimes people are try to be maybe over organized and they're always forward thinking as opposed to being in the moment. Those might be some contributors.

Well, it sounds like you're sticking up for the those people that are losing their focus.

No, I'm just saying there could be justifiable reasons.

Okay. So I mean there are some reasons why we're going to get into why we can't keep our focus. But I mean we're going to be talk about it in the work environment because I mean, have you ever been at work and you said to yourself, I'm just spinning my wheels here, not getting anywhere. Well, there could be a reason.

True.

So we're going to talk a little bit about that. But quick question. Is there a difference between motivation and focus?

Motivation and focus. Can you give me the context in so far as. Because I think they're two vastly different things in my opinion.

They are different. And I'll, I'll just help you out because I, I did went to my friend Google and, and you're gonna laugh because you already brought it up. Anytime you Google something now, AI decides to chime in whether you like it or not. Okay. Motivation is the why behind an action or the drive to pursue a goal, while focus is the how you mean it. Really simple. Yeah.

Okay, that makes sense. So I, to my point, I think they're two completely different.

They are different, but they're like hand and foot together.

Correct.

Okay. And let's, let's put it in perspective. There's Buddhist Mon that can meditate for eight hours. Navy SEALs maintain laser focus during 72 hour missions. And most of us can't even finish reading a simple email without getting distracted. So where's the happy medium with them?

Two vastly extreme ends to those. But yeah, I, is it a, a learned skill to do both to have motivation and focus?

Absolute. Absolutely it is. It's a learning skill. But I'm going to tell you a little story and it happened years ago and I mentioned you before, I would sometimes carry two cell phones and a pager. And for those listeners that don't understand what a pager is, you can Google that. I'm not going down that road. Right. So you say I did get rid of the pager when someone made fun of me about still having a pager. But hard habits are hard to break.

That's a side note that's how my wife told me that she was pregnant with our 24 year old. The, the pager went off and said call me, I have to talk to you.

So back to my story. What happens is I forget my phone at home, go into my office and I start working and I got more work done than you can imagine because I didn't have phone as a distraction.

That provided you with more focus.

More focus. Right. So. And keep, keep that in mind. You think about it. How many times do you get the notification about let's say a text, an email. And if you're sitting there literally trying to either Dr. After report an email yourself or simply read something that, that you need to get done for either for a course or for a meeting or whatever. And that keeps going off.

Yeah. Said focus is in constantly interrupted.

So, so even, even when there are external, let's we'll call them distractions, you can still keep your focus. But there's a reason why this kind of, kind of happens to us and it's, and it's the same old, same old. But any idea why?

No, I think people don't, I think to what I had said earlier is that there's so much going on these days that it might be hard for people just to singularly focus on, on an item or a task without being concerned that they're missing so much other, so many other things. And then to your point, then there's always stuff pulling away from maybe what the core objective was.

So what if I, what if I told you it was primal and it was a mechanism to make sure that we stayed alive many, many, many years ago. So for example, if you were having something to eat, you focus and you're like cavemen or whatever. At the same time you're paying attention to maybe some leaves rustling or anything like that because there might be a predator that decides to have you for lunch while you're having lunch.

I like that analysis. It makes sense.

The, the key is to figure out how to manage the distractions and you kind of brought it up. So how you learn to focus is this skill set called attention recovery. So, and anybody is capable of doing this.

So it's like falling off track but having the ability to get back on track.

That's right. Gotcha. And, and to keep it, keep it really, really simple. Is that you. You know, we talked about active listening all the time, but this way it's a different kind of active skill set you're tuning into because you're paying attention to when you're getting off track and just to kind of throw it out there and put it in perspective. The, the reason why it's probably a good idea that maybe think about doing this is that the studies show that if you get distracted, let's say you're at work or whatever, it's going to take you a good 23 minutes to track.

Oh, wow.

So think about that for a second and think about what I said about spinning the wheels. And that makes perfect sense. Right.

So I, to move back into an office environment with work. And nowadays there's always like the big open cubicle spaces and stuff like that. And I made it mandatory. I said I need a door. Like I need to be able to.

Shut a door in your cubicle.

No, def. That would be interesting. And yeah, probably would never hear the end of that. But no, to that point I need to be able to close out the noise to be able to focus and get dialed in. I'm not going say I'm easily distracted, but yeah, I think we're just social beings and if you're in an office setting, yeah, it's work. But if you hear somebody laughing or whatever, I think the, the tendency is to go, oh, what's going on over there?

So, so let's just quickly do the math. Okay. So it's a, let's we call it an eight hour day. We're in the cubicles doing our work and every focus and all of a sudden you hear the laugh. There goes 23 minutes.

Yep, that's fair.

The next hour, it's not a laugh, but it's a phone call. There goes 23 minutes. I'm doing a, I'm returning an email and I get a text either from home or a colleague that' for something. Yeah. There goes 23 minutes.

That sounds like a horribly unproductive day in my books.

Well, that's, that's the thing. Right. So this, this skill set that I'm suggesting you try and build is, is at the end of the day is called boomerang brain.

Okay.

It doesn't sound like a term of. But, but really when you think about it. So I'm getting distracted. I'm thinking to myself, okay, what's distracting me right now? And then I become aware of that and I, because I come aware of that, I slowly bring myself back to focus. Gotcha. And the more times that I, it's simply exercising. The more times I can do this, the easier it is for me to get back to my focus.

Trusting. Yeah, it's like your point goes along with the Boomerang. It goes out circles around and you got to try and bring it back.

So if you're not keeping your focus, you're going to get hit, right?

Yes, you are.

So, so you think about it. What distractions do we normally deal with in the day? And I'll, we'll talk about first the work environment and then the home environment. Because you kind of talked about the home environment where you, when, when you should really be keeping your focus. When, let's say you just walk or. And people are saying, well, how was your day? And they want to spend some time with you, but you're kind of.

And the dog's there and you know, to your point, there's. If somebody's watching a funny show or whatever the case may be. But yeah, the house is non stop full of distractions.

Okay, so what about work? What kind of distractions? I've already kind of mentioned a few of them. Right.

So you've got to get up and go to the washroom, you know, then there's usually a stop and you pass somebody in the hallway or if you got to go to the coffee station, grab a beverage of a certain type. So yeah, it's, it's almost like anytime you physically move in the office, there's a distraction.

I may have mentioned this before, but what about meetings as a distraction for sure, because I mean, you just want to be at your desk trying to get the task done or the tasks done at hand and now you got to go to the 10 o' clock update meeting. Yeah. Where most people are checked out anyhow. Yep. Yeah.

And to try and get back to your point into stride, some days I'll have eight teams meetings back to back to back. So I have to have a running list of priorities written down in front of me so that if a meeting finishes early, I can hop back on track. But yeah, it's, it's just I'm not a big fan of meetings. I don't mind meetings when they have hardcore purpose to them, but there's a lot of. They're just discussions or think tanks. It's like, no, I'll pass. That's better things to do.

Yeah, you can. And if you distinguish meetings between brainstorming sessions, that's helpful too because really with the brainstorming you're asking people to bring their, their ideas and, and focus on new ideas, I should say. Right.

So, so it's almost like they're asking that you come to the meeting already checked out. So you don't, you're not preoccup Anything.

So what if I told you this conversation that we've been having, let's say over 10 minutes. That's a, a long way around to say that really what I'm talking about is meditation in a sense.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Then now I see that it's, it's.

Starting to kind of make sense to you now, right. Have you ever tried meditation or Siri?

Honest?

No.

My wife suggested it a handful of times and I, I don't know, the last seven years I've, I've overfilled my plate, so I just, just. It never fit into my schedule, to be honest. But I'm not opposed to it, but just never actively practiced it.

Okay, getting back to that, the, the Navy SEALs, and I think we talked about it before because there's a certain breathing pattern that they have to basically calm themselves and, and keep their focus. So I mean, and I'm just learning about myself. When it comes to meditation, really the key is to focus on your breathing, to allow you to focus on your environment. And, and, and again, it's, it's something that's going to come with practice, but it's, it's not going to happen overnight.

But it's, it's a, again, a learned skill. It's not something that just.

So we, we kind of did the math with the, with how much time in a day you could possibly waste. Considering the 23 minute rule. If you took, let's say half that 23 minutes and spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to meditate, at the end of the day, we'll just call. I would suggest it would be an investment.

I would agree.

I, I'm, I'm going this. Okay. Because you're about to walk through the doors, brand new office, meet a bunch of new people, at least their skill sets and figure out how they can work, how we can get the most of them, how we can work together and maybe even have a little fun. What have you walked to the door and said hey, the first thing we're going to do is learn to say.

Might get laughed out of the building. Yeah, I, I understand it. I, I do. It's just. Yeah, it's, it's inherently goes against what, you know, the workplace almost not demands of you. But is, is, you know, nowadays also companies seem to be doing more with less people.

So which makes, makes it harder for sure. Yeah.

Because those 10 minutes are valuable and.

Some people are still working from home. Yep. You might have to go solo if you want to go down this and see if it's something that, that's worthwhile and if it works really, really well. Yeah, just keep it to yourself. Yeah.

You know, just call them extended blinks or something like whatever you need to do. But yeah, I think that would, I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but I think it would. It would be inherently hard to set side tight fat, especially, you know, with your line of work. You know, does the day allow for that? Like, yes, I'm sure it's not busy all the time, but I would, I.

Would, I would think not. But getting back to what you had mentioned is that sometimes you literally got to go into an office that you can close the door and I'll say be at one with yourself and that task at hand to get it done.

I used to have to physically remove myself from the city. We used to have property up north. And when I had big meetings coming up and I wanted to just really dive into whether it was a large presentation or whatnot, I would go up to the cabin and that would allow me zero distraction. So my focus was pure. So sometimes I think you do have to go to extremes like that to get that hyper focused.

Do you see any value in this? I say suggestion to develop a boomerang brain at all? For sure.

I don't think it's a bad thing. It's just training to get back to what you were working on.

Yeah. First of all, it's understanding why it is that, that the distractions occur and, and kind of already said that it's, it was a means of survival way back when. And now that we understand it, there's a way you can use it by practicing me using some form of meditation and another way to look at it. So let's say Mai Tai. Okay. How many times or how many reps does it take you to let's say perfect a move. Perfect a move.

Thousand. Yeah, it's, there's, there's a, there's a saying. I just want to make sure I can get it right. Be scared of the man who practices one technique 10,000 times versus the man who practices a thousand techniques once.

Oh, that's perfect. Okay, so if you can imagine, let's say that that one technique is, is to learn how to properly fall and get back up again in a very, very short period of time. And if someone does that for, for let's say 10,000 times, literally they can be back up on their feet in probably less than two or three seconds.

I think it would be memory type.

Think, muscle memory, pre programmed as Opposed to me right now, where I might be down there for a couple minutes because I don't work as well as I used to.

But yes, I think repetition is the key to success with anything like this.

Keep that, Keep that in mind. I mean, first of all, understand that and don't beat up on yourself too much because, I mean, it's. I think it's just based on what we're talking about, it's kind of natural to lose your focus. But. And we, we. We've just been talking about it in the work environment, but you think about those important conversations that you have with the people you care for. And if you can't keep your focus with that because you got too much on your plate.

Yeah.

Some people are not going to be very happy with you.

No. And I think I brought this up in a previous episode. Whenever my sons kind of fell off course, I would take them for a drive and we would park just near a park or whatever where there was zero distraction like the house, anybody else, and have meaningful conversations so that I knew 100% had their soul, undivided attention and they weren't distracted. And those were pretty impactful conversations. Except for them when they knew they were going for a quote unquote drive with that. But, but it was a. I found it just a. For a different way to connect with them and keep that focus.

As opposed at. At the office where the boss would say, hey, let's go have a coffee. Hey, wait a second. The boss never asked me for a coffee.

And there's a coffee station right there.

But you know, the, the thing about it, if we understand this and we can and, and think about this too, and even today, like when you're having this conversation and someone's not paying attention to you because they have that device that's distracting them from the conversation you're having, which really, if you're having a heartfelt conversation, really takes the wins out of that sale. For sure. Yeah.

I think you have to implement different control measures. Like I have a big all teams meeting in December off site, and I told my entire team, there is no cell phones, there is no laptops. You will have pencil and piece of paper. That's it. So you sometimes have to go to those extremes to get people to be in the moment.

What a tough cookie you are.

I know.

Yeah. Not that this is going to change our focus too, too much, but there's that music again. It's distracting is for sure. But like anything, it takes practice and it will take time. But keeping in mind the 23 minute rule and if you can somehow hone a scale that's going to remove that 23 minute this round just by simply engaging in a 10 minute I'll call it an exercise because that's all it is then there'll be less distractions I will let the listeners decide if it's something that will work for them but if you have nothing to lose and at best it's more time in your day to help you manage your life work balance why not yeah I like the.

Boomerang theory I think I might implement that one and cut that 23 minutes.

Down to 10 well let's see if it works for you and you can you can let the list horizontal for sure sure and I don't know when you're retired like maybe distractions are pleasant.

Exactly I don't in a day yes.

So but to remember to take advantage of the moment before the moment takes advantage of you to learn more about e walkabout please visit us at ewalkabout.ca.