Quotes About Attention

This had happened to him before - in an effort to disappear, he had made himself more conspicuous.

To be described is to be seduced. Shit. One turn of phrase. One thing noticed that she'd never noticed. It works always.

It was a sad place, especially after a day at the Circle, where all was made with care and love and the gift of a good eye.

The Circle had 90 percent of the search market. Eighty-eight percent of the free-mail market, 92 percent of text servicing. That was, in her perspective, a simple testament to their making and delivering the best product. It seemed insane to punish the company for its efficiency, for its attention to detail. For succeeding.

It was like setting up a guillotine in the public square.You don't expect a thousand people to line up to put their heads in it.

Even a four-dollar cup was miraculous, given how many people were involved, and how much individual human attention and expertise was lavished on the beans dissolved in that four-dollar cup. So much human attention and expertise, in fact, that even at four dollars a cup, chances were some person—or many people, or hundreds of people—along the line were being taken, underpaid, exploited.

it's really in the business of keeping our eyes on the TV or our fingers clicking.

The big problem is that your mind keeps reminding you of things when you can't do anything about them. It has no sense of past or future. That means that as soon as you tell yourself that you need to do something, and store it in your RAM, there's a part of you that thinks you should be doing that something all the time.

But if you don't decide what needs to be done about your secretary's birthday, because it's "not that important" right now, that open loop will take up energy and prevent you from having a totally effective, clear focus on what is important.

Merely having thoughts is one thing. Consciously feeding them is quite another. You are powerful all the time, by way of your attention and intention. The question is, Toward what are you pointing that power?

1) collect things that command our attention; (2) process what they mean and what to do about them; and (3) organize the results, which we (4) review as options for what we choose to (5) do.

Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does. Responding inappropriately to your e-mail, your thoughts about what you need to do, your children, or your boss will lead to less effective results than you'd like. Most people give either more or less attention to things than they deserve, simply because they don't operate with a mind like water.

Anything that does not belong where it is, the way it is, is an "open loop," which will be pulling on your attention if it's not appropriately managed. In

I have learned over the years that the most important thing to deal with is whatever is most on your mind. The fact that you think it shouldn't be on your mind is irrelevant. It's there, and it's there for a reason.

there are five discrete stages that we go through as we deal with our work. We (1) collect things that command our attention; (2) process what they mean and what to do about them; and (3) organize the results, which we (4) review as options for what we choose to (5) do.

sort of planning activity: (1) those that still have your attention even after you've determined their next actions, and (2) those about which potentially

Handle what has your attention and you'll then discover what really has your attention.

You have to use your mind to get things off your mind.

We (1) capture what has our attention; (2) clarify what each item means and what to do about it; (3) organize the results, which presents the options we (4) reflect on, which we then choose to (5) engage with.

Your Mind Doesn't Have a Mind of Its Own At least a portion of your mind is really kind of stupid, in an interesting way. If it had any innate intelligence and logic, it would remind you of the things you needed to do only when you could do something about them.

There are two types of projects, however, that deserve at least some sort of planning activity: (1) those that still have your attention even after you've determined their next actions, and (2) those about which potentially useful ideas and supportive detail just show up ad hoc.

You can only put your conscious attention on one thing at a time. If that's all that has your attention, you're in flow.

you can decide what, specifically, something means to you and what you intend to do about it, if anything; if you can use a placeholder as a reminder of what you need to attend to;

You are powerful all the time, by way of your attention and intention. The question is, Toward what are you pointing that power?