For the curious! We’re exploring the inner-workings of the human brain to understand behavior change, habit formation, mental health, and being human. It’s Brain Science applied — not just “how does the brain work,” but how do we apply what we know about the brain to transform our lives?
Competing for attention
Mireille and Adam discuss the mechanism of attention as an allocation of one’s resources. If we can think of attention as that of a lens, we can practice choosing what we give our attention to recognizing that multiple things, both externally and internally, routinely compete for our attention. Distraction can also be useful when we utilize it intentionally to manage the focus of our attention.
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Notes and Links
Attention is the mechanism through which the brain focuses resources on some thing. If you can direct your attention, then you can direct where your brain puts its resources. You can think of attention similar to that of a camera lens. What lens and at what focal length are you using to focus with?
- The Web 2.0 Show #43 w/ Kathy Sierra: Creating passionate users
- Watch! Pay attention: you can change your brain by Kitty Chisholm at TEDxLondonBusinessSchool — where she says “It’s a very a competitive environment,” when it comes to attention.
- Add this to your book shelf — Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- As well as Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi