What is Attention Compass and How will it help me? - DBR 022

Do Busy Right

What is Attention Compass and How will it help me? This is one of a series of posts that are going to discuss Attention Compass in detail. Attention Compass is my proprietary tool and workflow to put you in control of your information and attention - making you a better more confident knowledge worker and reducing your stress over your productivity. My goal is to equip any listener with the tools needed to implement Attention Compass. I think many people are struggling with the problem(s) that AC solves – overwhelm, associated stress, and fear that things are falling through the cracks. If that’s you, I want to serve you as best I can. So, I’ll tell you how to implement your own Attention Compass. If you try to do it and struggle, give me a call and I’ll help you get it fixed. We’ll start with some assumptions that explain why Attention Compass is built the way it is. This will help you make decisions about how you want to use your Attention Compass. It should also help you figure out more about why you want to have an Attention Compass. Underlying assumptions

• There are more than we could ever…
• There are more things to do than we could ever get done
• There are more things to know than we could ever look at
• Sounds like bad news, but… this makes us fear forgetting/losing/missing something
• This fear is low-level, continually stressful for us
• Our memories are unreliable as to time, particularly in the future
• We know this so we create artifacts and systems, but our brains don’t trust them
• Misusing the ‘workbench’, the productive asset, our mind/brain
• That means we need to get things off our mind

Implications

• More than we can look at and more than we can get done = a ton of stuff
• More information than will fit in our brain
• Not actually two types, so one kind of storage will work
• It's going to be a huge number of things (double huge)
• This means that we have to store it in a system
• There are only two choices
• If we try to use people
• We’re left with some kind of system
• Task management
• We get paid on delivering artifacts and we call the work to do so ‘tasks’
• Most of us don’t get paid to deliver random bits of information, but we still need to store reference info
• So, tasks need to be first-class citizens in our information management system
• A task is just a specific kind of information
• Aside on managing time vs. attention
• The system is a tool for storing stuff in the right ways (as defined by our analysis earlier)
• It's an electronic tool
• In addition to the tool, Attention Compass has four workflows

Properties of the system

• Electronic is best
• “Intangible” = not quite a physical reality
• Oddly, this is one place where people tend to hang on to analog, maybe because it’s something like a book?
• More portable
• Updates are easier
• Distributes (automatically) more places
• More searchable
• More ways to organize it (a physical store can only have one (direct) index)
• And we need to use a backlog (metaphor) to store it
• We’ve tried other storage metaphors (catalog, schedule), but they didn’t work – good and bad places to park
• What a backlog is
• More definition of backlog
• More backlog justification (vs. PMI ‘calendar’ and WBS)
• And we have to make and track postponement decisions
• Example postponing a task (grass cutting)
• When we say we’re ‘not doing’ something, we’re usually postponing
• Postponement decision needs to be tracked
• Some recap of logic to date
• About Attention Compass
• So, these things mean that you need a personal Info Mgt System
• Attention compass is a personal information management system

The four workflows (most frequent to least)

• Capture
• Observing the internal world
• Observing the external world
• Capture is semi-continuous, event-driven
• Processing
• Turn it in to want it is
• Put it where it belongs
• Daily review
• Don’t have to make a to-do list
• Pull from the backlog
• Validate against other commitments
• Weekly Review – the bigger picture
• Maximum clarity and control

So what? Now you understand some of the ideas of Attention Compass. Pick one and work to implement it in your life - tracking your postponement decisions is a good example. You can go to my website for instructions on how to make a physical system (called a "tickler file") that will put you in complete control of your postponements. As you create this habit, you will begin to see a new clarity and confidence about your tasks and attention management. This should encourage you to continue your efforts to improve in this critical area of your knowledge work life.