“I’m looking forward to your speech and hope I can learn something that will help me”, Michael said as he helped me put on the lavaliere microphone and test its sound. “We have several multiple location presentations like this a week and, for them to go smoothly, I have to pay attention to a number of different things at once.”

I told him how I could see that would be true. “The problem is,” he said, “that when I need to focus on one thing rather than several, I can’t seem to get my mind to do it. It is like I’m incapable of focusing on one thing at a time.”

Have you ever felt like Michael?

I’m not sure when it happened, but some time in the past 15-20 years the idea that multi-tasking was the way to manage demand became the defacto truth. Juggling several things at once became the solution to keep abreast of the vast amount of information we were expected to sort through at faster and faster rates. Multi-tasking was seen as key to tackling all the new ways we were connected—and communicating—through technology.
As we’ve embraced multi-tasking in our personal and professional lives, the consequences for our ability to focus is getting harder and harder to ignore. Multi-tasking requires that we skim the surface of things—know only what we need to know at that moment—so that we can cross it off the list. Over time we have conditioned ourselves to avoid concentrating on any one thing and have trained ourselves to quickly switch our attention from one thing to another. The result is that we can’t apply our focus for extended periods of time.

While we waited for the presentation to start, I told Michael that focus can be trained just like any other muscle. I walked him through a couple of breathing exercises. Michael was amazed at how these simple, but powerful, technique helped him take control of his attention.

I shared with him the research that says that small amounts of meditation can improve cognitive capacity and functioning. He decided he would take stop for 1-3 minutes before each meal to focus on his breathing. He believed the meal itself would be a reminder and it seemed like a natural time for him to clear his mind.
I saw Michael this past week when he was assigned to the Audio Visual team for another one of the company’s leadership conferences that I had been asked to participate in. “I’m so glad to see you,” he said. “I want you to know that your suggestion made a difference”.

He said he noticed a difference in his ability to focus a couple of weeks after starting his breathing routine. In fact, he called on the breathing exercise to help him focus. “When I’m faced with something that I need to pay close attention to,” he explained, “I close my eyes and take some deep breaths to collect my attention. When I open my eyes, I’m able to focus more intently and for longer periods of time than I ever was before.”

Why not experiment with the breathing exercise to reclaim your focus?

“It used to be a big part of my life too,” Tim, a software engineer, said, “but with my job and my family, I just don’t have time for it anymore.”

Tim said he had to make hard choices about how to spend his time because the various demands in his life ate away at his day. “I have to weigh whether something will directly make me more efficient or effective at my job. Exercise? It won’t help me get my job done so it doesn’t make the short list.”

How many of you have said the same?

I gently pushed back on Tim’s rationale and told him that exercise is a uniquely powerful way to get more energy throughout the day. I mentioned studies show exercise enhances cognitive functioning improves our mood, and helps us sleep. If he exercised more he would feel better and think more clearly which would have a direct positive effect on his job performance.

Tim decided to commit to getting more exercise especially given the warmer weather and the chance to be outside. We crafted a plan that would work for him given his schedule and family obligations. He said he would go for a 30 min run over his lunch hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s so that he could still help get the kids off to school in the morning. He would set it as an appointment in his own calendar and dress in his exercise clothes those mornings to serve as another reminder. Additionally, he would take his children for a bike ride on the nearby park path on either Saturday or Sunday for at least 45 minutes.

Just this past weekend, I ran into Tim while walking the dog and asked him about his exercise ritual. “It is going great,” Tim said, “The runs during my lunch hour seem to energize me for the rest of the day. I come back focused and sometimes find stepping away from my desk gives me perspective on an issue I had been grappling with all morning.” He went on to say that he had even added another day of running during the week because he loved how it made him feel. “I’m not sure why I thought that exercise wasn’t a factor in how I did my job or even how I feel about myself. It will stay one of my priorities because I see the tangible results in how I act, think and feel.”

What might you learn from Tim’s experience to bring exercise back into your life?

Hotel rooms at night are not always the refuge you wish they were. Walls can be thin. You can often hear the bell announcing the elevator or people talking in the hallways. Sometimes your neighbor’s television can be so loud that it seems as if it is in your room. Many hotels do not have windows that open or working thermostats and the rooms can be stuffy, too hot or too cold. Sheets can be stiff. Pillows not quite right. When you add the fact that you might have a late arrival, it is no wonder that people don’t look 100% rested after a hotel stay. But my clients and colleagues expect me to be at the top of my game when I am with them and too little sleep– or a poor night’s sleep–can sabotage my performance in a multitude of ways.

Research is making it clear that no single behavior more fundamentally influences our effectiveness in waking life than sleep. The Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Lab found that well rested athletes reported higher energy levels and alertness, better moods, as well as improved performance compared to athletes who didn’t get as much shut eye. Other studies done at Harvard reveal our cognitive functioning is also greatly compromised when we are sleep deprived. Thankfully, certain behaviors can truly help you get a better night’s sleep in an unfamiliar—or familiar—bed.

1. Avoid any caffeine or alcohol for at least three hours before you try to go to sleep. Caffeine is a stimulant that keeps us up and alcohol, while a short- term sedative, can increase the number of times that we wake up in the middle of the night due to dehydration.

2. Follow the sleep time routines you have at home regardless of what time you arrive to help you relax and ready yourself for sleep. That means you might take a warm shower or bath and avoid turning on the television because it only re-engages your mind, especially when you begin to flip through all the channels you don’t regularly get to watch at home!

3. Turn the temperature down and fully draw the shades. We tend to sleep better in cooler, dark rooms. Lastly, make sure that the fan is turned ‘on’ rather than set to ‘automatic’ to create some white noise to drown out the hallway or neighbor noise that can keep you awake.

If you follow these simple steps, you will sleep better, even if it is a strange place. You’ll wake feeling rested and ready for what lies ahead.

Are there other things that work for you? If so, please let me know in the comment section.

Kristen explained that she splits her work hours between her office, her home, and meetings at various academic or governmental institutions. She finds the variety in her daily routine to help her stay energized, she rarely eats lunch at her desk, and she tries to take a stretch break in the afternoon when she feels sleepy or sluggish. “I know the breaks I take help me, but how can I be sure to get the most bang for my buck?”

I shared with Kristen the three keys to optimizing the breaks we take:

1. Focus on quality not quantity: While we may experience a normal, natural dip in our energy every 90-120 minutes do to the ultradian rhythm, we need a fraction of that time to renew. I encouraged her to shut her radio off when driving and refrain from making or taking calls on her cell phone as she traveled to and from meetings in her car, so that she could quiet her mind and reflect on her day or think about her next appointment. The more you can focus on getting recovery in that short period of time, the more refreshed you will feel.

2. Have options: Your break will be more effective if you take a moment to listen to what your body, heart and mind are telling you. Are you hungry? Do you need to improve your mood? Are you distracted? You should pick an activity that will address your most imminent need. I encouraged Kristen to add some other potential options to her afternoon break, such as listening to a song on her iPod, walking around the office to visit with colleagues, or going outside to get some fresh air. Having a number of activities to choose from would help her easily address what was most essential at the time.

3. Build in reminders: It is easy to overlook taking recovery especially when demand is high and deadlines are tight. Set a reminder in your phone to ring at a certain time, schedule it into your calendar, or write a reminder on a Post-it note and put it in a prominent place. Breaks only work…when you take them. I suggested these ideas to Kristen and she said it would help her continue to navigate her busy life.

How can you use these tips to get the most out of the breaks you take in your life?

As the head of a business unit responsible for marketing and distributing auto parts in the US and Canada, David had twice monthly meetings with a team of approximately 20 people. “These meetings last all day and I’m just not sure that’s necessary,” David told me as we ate. “Despite all my attempts to keep people focused, I feel like having computers and Blackberries in the room makes us less productive.” He went on to say, “My colleagues use their computers to take notes, but they are also looking at email or doing other things. I’ve lost track of the number of times when the discussion changes course because someone checks their Blackberry and engages the group to solve an issue that is not either particularly urgent or important.”

Have you ever been in a meeting like that?

As more and more companies provide laptops to employees and move to paperless environments, computers are becoming commonplace in meetings. I personally find it more efficient to take notes on my computer—it saves the step of transferring the notes, I can distribute the notes more quickly to people, and I have everything in one place. But, in the spirit of full disclosure, I can get distracted when I see an email that is about something other than the topic at hand, or when I’ve tried to squeeze in some small task.

Linda Stone, a researcher in the field of Interruption Science, coined the term “continuous partial attention” to describe the way that many of us use our attention today. We are constantly scanning our environment, she says, for better opportunities or activities, and we are driven by a desire to not miss anything. Unfortunately, the result is that we are often in a distracted state of high alert, unable to fully focus on any one thing.

After hearing about the research on continuous partial attention, David decided he was going to immediately change the way he ran his meetings. He decided to forbid laptops during the meetings and insist that Blackberries be placed on a side table. The team could access them during breaks, but would put them aside when the group reconvened.

We chatted last week as a follow up to the networking event and I asked him how his experiment was going.
“We’ve cut our meeting time in half!” David told me excitedly. “There has been a dramatic shift not only in our efficiency, but also in the quality of focus and decision-making”.

“Interestingly,” he continued, “people have said that they feel much more respected by one another because people are listening more closely. It has been a major shift in the way we work together and it is having a positive impact on the business”.

What steps could you take to minimize distractions in the meetings you hold?

After his kids went to bed, Kevin typically settled in at his dining room table and worked until about 11:30, when his wife would ask him to come to bed to watch the late shows with her. Sitting in bed with his laptop, he’d clear out his in-box. He also prided himself on his ability to schedule conference calls with Asia late at night and with the UK in the wee hours of the morning.. “Sleep is overrated,” he told me. “I just don’t need what others do—and I think it gives me an edge. I can be more productive than my colleagues.”

Does this sound like you or someone you know?

Sleep is critical to our effectiveness and productivity. No single behavior has a more direct impact on how we perform. The National Sleep Foundation says the vast majority of us need between seven and eight hours of sleep a night, but like Kevin, a large number of the executives I work with sleep even less than that and tell me they don’t feel any ill effects.

I shared some of the highlights of the research on cognitive performance and sleep deprivation with Kevin. In one study, for example, individuals who averaged four hours of sleep for five consecutive nights had the same memory, attention, and speed of thinking as someone who was legally intoxicated. The data is compelling: Scrimp on sleep, lose intelligence and knowledge.

So what can you do to get a good (better) night’s sleep? Here are some tips:

1. Keep a regular sleep schedule. Going to bed every night and waking at the same time every morning helps your body stick to an internal rhythm making it easier for you to sleep soundly.

2. Minimize your alcohol and caffeine intake. Both can disrupt your sleep through different mechanisms and should be avoided after lunch to increase your ability to sleep soundly.

3. Get your heart rate up during the day. Exercising 20-30 minutes per day has been shown to help people sleep. However, you don’t want to workout right before trying to lay your head on pillow because your body will be stimulated not slowing down.

4. If you can’t sleep, get out of bed. Many folks toss and turn the night away when they should get out of bed if they can’t sleep. Get up and read or write down what is on your mind. When you feel sleepy again is when you should climb back into bed.

If these do not work, do not despair. Recent research shows you can “catch up” on your sleep if you begin to have a sleep debt. So, after a few nights of poor–or not enough shut eye–be sure to try to sleep a little later than normal.

For one month, Kevin agreed to “experiment” with getting more sleep. He knew he would need support from his wife, so they decided to turn off the television at 10:30 every night, and to spend 30 minutes winding down by listening to jazz as they got ready for bed. They also agreed to ban computers and smartphones from the bedroom after 10:30 in order to avoid the temptation to get back online.

When the month was up, Kevin reported that he felt much more rested and clear-headed throughout the day. He was able to focus more effectively—despite the interruptions he faced—and therefore brought less work home. It also became clear to him that he was not as sharp on the late-night and early-morning calls as he thought he was. When he limited them to once every two weeks, the calls proved to be more efficient and effective.
“Just getting more sleep has made me feel better, think better, and relate better to my team and my family,” he told me “It has actually made me more productive, which I didn’t think was possible.”

I recently saw an example of this when I asked Susan, in a group coaching session, about her eating habits. She started by saying that the mornings in her house were a bit chaotic. With two kids to get off to school, Susan, a single mother and an executive at a financial-services institution, never had time for breakfast. “I’ve never really liked breakfast food,” she said, “and I’m not hungry in the morning, either. Give me a cup of coffee, and I’m good to go.”

Susan’s first meal of the day was lunch, when she typically grabbed a salad or sandwich from the office cafeteria. A self-confirmed “choco-holic,” she admitted to hitting the vending machine for a Snickers bar in the afternoon or, when she felt hungry for a snack, raiding the bowl of Hershey’s Kisses her colleague keeps at her desk. Starving by the time she got home, she would often eat four or five handfuls of nuts or crackers as she cooked dinner for the kids or waited for the take-out food to be delivered.

“By the time dinner is ready,” she told me when we began, “I’m not really hungry anymore. I can’t tell the kids it is important to eat dinner if I don’t. So I end up eating more than I want to or even need to.”

Do you see yourself in Susan?

The key to using nutrition as a performance enhancer is to maintain a steady blood-sugar level. Food is our primary source of glucose and glucose powers not only our brains, but also the rest of the cells in our bodies. The good news is that we can directly influence the level of our blood glucose levels by what, how much, and when we choose to eat.

Many of my clients go long periods of time without eating. As a result, their blood glucose drops, and then their alertness fades or their mood shifts. When they do finally eat, they’re so hungry that they end up eating more than they really need and end up feeling stuffed and uncomfortable.

Three tips for keeping your blood sugar level:

1. Mom was right about breakfast. Breakfast is especially important to regulating our blood sugar because it normally follows the longest period of time that we go without food. Eating breakfast stokes our metabolism, or the rate that we burn calories—and fuel energy—throughout the day.

2. Eat like a baby. We are born with the innate ability to eat just the right amount to keep our blood sugar at the optimum level, but then society teaches us otherwise. To keep blood sugar stable, it’s best to eat small meals throughout the day, at least every three hours.

3. Embrace the Glycemic Index. The speed to which food breaks down in our systems has a direct impact on how we feel and think. Carbohydrates tend to break down more quickly than protein leaving us hungry and yearning for more food, more frequently.

To change her approach, Susan began to eat a breakfast of either turkey and apple slices or a peanut butter sandwich (which she found easy to prepare and eat as she got the kids out the door). She brought packets of string cheese and nuts to work for midmorning and mid-afternoon snacks, replacing the coffee and chocolate she had previously turned to for a quick fix. She also began keeping bags of high-protein soy chips in her car for the ride home to take the edge off her end-of-the-day hunger.

“It’s been remarkable!” she told me after a month. “Eating something in the morning has made me more energized, and the midmorning snack keeps me from getting distracted by hunger pangs. I am much more focused on my work and my team.”

Susan also made some diet adjustments to the second half of her day. “While I love chocolate,” she explains, “the energy I got from it wasn’t as long-lasting as what I get from having some almonds or yogurt. Now I feel almost as good at the end of the day as I do at the beginning!” At dinnertime, Susan sits down with the kids and eats a meal that her body needs and she enjoys. “Now that I’ve discovered this way of eating,” she says, “I’ll never go back.”

“I know that I shouldn’t multi-task while on them, but I’m on so many conference calls every day that I need to use the time to get other things done.”

Dean described how he tried to tune into the parts of the conversations that were relevant to him and tune out the rest, so that he could catch up on emails or do expense reports. He admitted, though, that his approach doesn’t always work. “At least a couple of times a month, I find I’ll get distracted by what I’m doing and then hear a colleague say, ‘Dean? Dean, are you there?’ It is pretty embarrassing because it’s obvious I just got caught not paying attention.”

Has this ever happened to you?

There is little doubt that our attention is under siege. We know that more than two billion emails are sent everyday and sometimes it feels like they all end up in our own inboxes! More often than not, we aren’t even aware that we are failing to make intentional decisions about where we are putting our attention. Instead, we shift our focus reactively—to the newest shiny metal object that catches our eye. This can be especially true on conference calls when you can multi-task in the privacy of your own office.

I shared with Dean that we are incapable of keeping our minds on two separate tasks at the same time, so it was no wonder his attempts at conference call multi-tasking weren’t working. Current research supports the idea that multi-tasking is a myth—and when we split our attention, we work slower and retain less. Part of the problem as well is that none of us have a large amount of “working memory”. That is the short-term memory that we access to help us navigate any given moment.

In Distracted, Maggie Jackson cites research demonstrating that people remember significantly fewer facts about a television news story when there is a crawl running beneath it. Our working memory just doesn’t have the capacity to hold both the story and the crawl, so we end up losing parts of both.
In addition, when we try to do more than one thing at once, we lose the complexity, the depth, and the nuance of our work and our communication.

Dean was open to changing his behavior on conference calls and we designed some action steps to help him foster absorbed focus. He decided to turn off his email during conference calls and put his Blackberry in the desk drawer to minimize the temptation to look or respond to the incoming messages. He also opted to sit in a chair in the corner of his office rather than at his desk to help him pay closer attention to the conversation rather than the piles of papers on his desk. Lastly, he decided to take notes of what was being said on the call—with a pen and paper.

When I followed up with Dean a few weeks later on a coaching call, I was interested to hear about the effect of his conference call rituals. “These small changes in my behavior have made all the difference in the world!” he exclaimed. “By turning off my email and moving to a different part of my office, I automatically am able to focus more. I’ve found that taking notes has been incredibly helpful. Writing it down helps me process things more thoroughly.” Dean said these behaviors had made him more efficient because he did not have to go back to his colleagues to clarify things or to redo expense reports when he wasn’t really paying attention. “Folks have even been ribbing me that they no longer have to call my name during conference calls to get my opinion”, Dean added, “I’m right there with them!”

Reflecting on your own conference call behavior, are there some of Dean’s behaviors that you could adopt to improve your own absorbed focus?

• Be flexible in your personality. People who can demonstrate a range of emotions and approaches to a situation are more likely to be successful in times of adversity. The more you can be tender and tough, compromising and strong willed, or inclusive and independent, the more likely you can respond in a way that supports performance.

• Practice troubleshooting. Individuals who have a strong orientation around learning HOW things work are more successful navigating difficult situations. Assume an experimental approach to life. This will yield insights into cause and effect relationships that help you approach unexpected situations with an inquisitive—not intimidated—mindset.

• Use your imagination. To be successful when confronted with a significant challenge, you must be able to draw upon your ability to invent options to solve problems and raise morale by thinking independently and stepping outside preconceived notions, explanations or ideas.

• Have a sense of humor. There is conclusive evidence that laughter acts as a physical stress release. If you can find humor, even in dire circumstances, you will positively impact the quality of your decision making, increase your sense of control over the situation and diffuse tension with others.

• Show empathy. The ability to quickly read another individual and understand their perspective can be critical when time lines are tight or the pressure is high. It can help to avoid interpersonal blunders that could make or break the deal.

• Convert misfortune into opportunity. How can a survivor follow the recounting of the horrors of his or her experience with “It was the best thing that every happened to me”? This individual made a conscious choice to view what happened as a) accidental, b) a chance to apply their good sense or intelligence and c) an opportunity to uncover a beneficial outcome. This mindset helps to distinguish those individuals who succeed and those who fail in tough situations. Adopt it as quickly and completely as you can.

• Listen to your gut. Research states that only 5% of our thoughts and actions on a daily basis are conscious. Individuals who are able to thrive in tumultuous times look to tap into the 95% of unconscious thoughts and behaviors to improve their performance. Learn to attend to subtle reactions in your own body or in the behaviors of others to gain useful information to help you respond effectively.

Paul suggests this because he knows that while bicycling affords me lots of physical and emotional benefits, it has also given me some of my best ideas. Linking biking to thinking began for me when I started training for Ironman Triathlons in 2001. In order to prepare for the 112 mile bike ride portion of these races, I would spend 2 to 6 hours in the saddle several times a week. When you are alone and engaged in a particular repetitive activity for that period of time, you’ve got to occupy your mind. I noticed that the bike rides provided me with a chance to think through complex issues more fully than when I sat at my desk.

I could easily see how just having the time—and little else to distract me—allowed me to sort through a particular challenge, but I was amazed at the insights that seemed to come out of nowhere. How could it be that when I didn’t feel that I was thinking about much of anything, I would get some of my best ideas?

It turns out that I was accessing the right hemisphere of my brain. The daily tasks and activities we face at work primarily rely on a logical, deductive, analytical kind of attention. This critical thinking helps us to drive sequentially toward an end goal and get things done. But on the bike, I was able to step back from the urgent demands of what was in front of me and take a wider view. I was open and receptive to seeing things in different ways and making new connections between ideas. The best ideas come to us, paradoxically, when we let go of conscious control and allow ourselves to see and sense more deeply. I now find that when I go out for a ride, I will “plant the seed” of an idea and I frequently return from the ride with some new thoughts about how to proceed.

How might you become inspired from my experience and build in opportunities to access your right hemisphere? You might want to consider referencing Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind for some tips and suggestions on how to cultivate your own creative thinking abilities.