University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
One Second Ahead
Book

One Second Ahead

Enhance Your Performance at Work with Mindfulness

Rasmus Hougaard, Jacqueline Carter and Gillian Coutts
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

A barrage of information, data, advertising, commercials, emails, text messages, voice mails and other interruptions blasts away at you every waking minute. Rasmus Hougaard, Jacqueline Carter and Gillian Coutts believe you can tame the cacophony in short order. The secret to dealing with life’s interruptions is incredibly simple: Give each distraction just “one second’s” time, mindfully. Many companies turn to mindfulness to help their workers become more attentive and less distracted, including Microsoft, Accenture, Nike, American Express, General Electric, Google, Sony, KLM and Royal Bank of Canada. getAbstract recommends this useful, compact mindfulness program to busy executives, managers and workers, and to those seeking to reclaim their attention from the onslaught of daily distractions.

Summary

Focus at Work

In the past, workers could focus more easiliy. Today, technology is pervasively distracting. Employees must be constantly alert to interruptions, phone calls, emails, text messages and deadlines. Modern, burdensome “PAID reality” – which encompasses “Pressure,” “Always” being open for business, suffering “Information” overload and being routinely “Distracted” – makes it difficult to pay attention to the work in front of you.

Multitasking

The brain can only focus on one mental task at a time, so multitasking doesn’t work. What people call multitasking actually involves a constant shifting of focus from one task to another, or “shift-tasking.” This relentless change of focus reduces productivity, generates poor decision making and inhibits creativity. Multitasking is inefficient and leads to mistakes. Fortunately, it is not the only method available when you must cope with a lot of work.

The Mindfulness Solution

The time-honored practice of mindfulness can help you handle constant distractions. Mindfulness, a mental methodology dating back thousands of years, depends on “trained attention” – managing your focus, improving your awareness...

About the Authors

Rasmus Hougaard is an authority on training the mind to be more focused and effective. Jacqueline Carter has consulting and management experience; and Gillian Coutts is expert in corporate sales and operations functions.

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