Attention Management is the New Work Ethic
By Daniel Miessler on January 5th, 2009: Tagged as Productivity
From this article on internetnews:
The need for “attention,” rather than “hard work,” as the centerpiece of the new work ethic has arisen along with the rise of distractions carried on the wings of Internet protocol. In one generation, we’ve gone from a total separation of “work” from “non-work” to one in which both work and play are always sitting right in front of us.
Now, we find ourselves with absolutely nothing standing between us and a universe of distractions — nothing except our own abilities to control attention. Porn, gambling, funny videos, flirting, socializing, playing games, shopping — it’s all literally one click away. Making matters worse, indulging these distractions looks just like work. And it’s easy to work and play at the same time — and call it work. These new, increasingly compelling distractions get piled on to older ones — office pop-ins, e-mail, IM, text messages, meetings and others.
Quite simply, it doesn’t matter what you’re capable of if you’re not able to execute, and execution comes down to input (attention) management. I like it. It fits well with GTD’s concept of input management. ::