Hi, I'm Louise Aria and I'm Francesca Rudgin and welcome to our final episode for season five at our New Zealand Herald podcast, The Little Things.

Thanks for joining us in this podcast.

We sit down with the experts in their fields to unpack the little things that can help us navigate life at our agent stage and really at any agent stage, where he had to cut through the overload of information and get to the nitty gritty other things that impact us every day.

So at the beginning of the year, Louise, I don't know if you remember, but we were talking about what we'd love to get out of this podcast and things to work on throughout the year, and I said to you, I made a comment about my shitty attention span.

Do you remember this?

Like it had been summer, and I was really excited.

I had this pile of books to read and I was really looking forward to just tearing into them.

And I'd pick up a book and then five minutes later I'd be picking up my phone going, Oh, what's happened in the world, what's the news, which was absolutely ridiculous because it's Christmas and there is no news, nothing happens and it didn't matter how many days I did this and there was still no news.

I just found myself completely distracted, so easily distracted.

And I was quite surprised by this.

And it's not like you, because you love a book.

I know that's the thing.

That's why it took me by That's what took me by surprise.

Nobody's surprised about my lack of attention span.

Oh, I have a lack of attention span in other areas of my life that they were already obvious.

I think that's probably why it's Yeah, I don't hasn't improved.

How is it now?

You know?

It has improved immensely, But that's because but I had to do a bit of work on it, like I had to, and mostly it's improved around my work day, Like I've actually gone, I'm going to sit and I'm going to get this task completed before I look at emails and before I pick up my phone and respond to texts, and before I'm distracted by other people needing other things from me.

So I actually had to put a few boundaries and sort of just put some structure around my work, and actually I am getting it all done a lot faster, and I really enjoyed a lot of my work is writing, whether it's podcasts or film reviews and things like that, and I love getting into the flow of it.

And I was noticing that every time I was getting distracted by something else or someone needing something else, I'd just kind of I'd stop and I'd get out of that flow.

So it's yeah, no, it's that's worked well, but I still struggle with the book.

Maybe you should try and write one.

God, no, you've got a pretty good attention span, though.

Oh my god, it's just no mine has.

So you've improved through the year.

Mine has actually gotten the worse.

When I say improved, it's just well, I mean if I do things like set in my phone for forty five minutes, right, put a thing on timer forty five minutes, or do a block of work if I have one task.

But I think the difference is I've got more, As you know, I used to work on one project at a time.

Now I'm working on that's my problem.

I've got a whole lot of different jobs.

Yeah, and that's where it all disappears.

You give something some attention for a little while, and then somebody needs you for something on something else, or and it might be FTU wise divided into days that I get paid by which project, but it's not the same in my head, perhaps I should do it that way, but it doesn't work.

And then I work from home, so I'm distracted by I'll just quickly do that laundry.

Oh, what's in the pantry?

What's in the fridge that I don't know?

The fridge in the pantry are hugely distracting.

I'm so much worse if I work from home.

Frenchhyse Spirt's ridiculous.

And again I've got something that just got a deadline, and I'm fine on a deadline.

But you know where I noticed?

I joined a gym, and it was the university gym, which is stunning if you get a chance to see, it's beautiful.

But it's full of really young people, which was fine.

I could have stayed there, but it just ended up taking up too much time in my day.

But you know how exercises changed, right, so now we're lifting heavier, fewer sets and fewer reps.

But between the reps, between sets, you're supposed to have a two minute rest, right, according to my son, Strengthen and gndising coach, Mum, you need that two minutes.

You need to be readio.

Now, why can't I just sit or stand up and eat someone else use a machine or something and just steering to know for a couple of minutes.

I can't do it.

And you're always on your phone or something.

Everybody is, everybody is you just shuffle to the end of the ever read is it your machine you're on and don't make eye contact no matter what, and just look at your phone until that time is up and then you go back to your exercise.

It's like, I don't know, I'm a self interrupter.

I'm my own worst enemy and I'm over it and I want to be free of it.

Lets you're honest about it.

We're own own worst enemies.

So we're at that point of the year, aren't we that.

You know a lot of people are feeling quite tired.

The year is winding down, and yet we feel like we're winding up because we've just realized it's nearly the end of the year and there's ape too.

The pressure is on to complete work projects, take off, end of your events before the beautiful summer holidays.

We hope it seemed like a good time to talk about focus and our attention spans and help us get to the end of the year in one piece.

Yeah So, back in twenty twenty three, I covered this topic on newstalk Z'B with a fabulous academic and author, Gloria Mark.

Gloria is a Chancellor's Professor of Informatics at the University of California.

She has a PhD in psychology and studies the impact of digital media on our lives.

Her researchocuses on digital devices and the role they play in multitasking, interruptions, and our mood.

Gloria has written a book.

It's called Attention Span, Finding Focus for Fulfilling Life.

And Gloria Mark is with us now, welcome, Good to have you with us.

It's very nice to be here.

So, Gloria, I mean, before you join us, Francisca and I we're just talking about our oscillating attention spans, will be the most polite way of putting it.

Mine seems to have gotten worse.

Francisca is maybe a tiny little bit better from having worked on it a bit.

How have our lives changed in the modern digital area era?

And is that the driver for our lack of attention.

I would say it, yet it's because you mentioned I've been studying attention for a long time.

I've been empirically tracking attention, and over a twenty year period, our attention spans on screens declined.

Back around twenty two thousand and four, the hour averaged about two and a half minutes on a screen before people switched to something else, and starting from around twenty sixteen, they were averaging forty seven seconds.

And these studies have been repeated multiple times, so our attention spans have declined.

Forty seven seconds, not even a minute.

We can't even give something a minute now.

Now that's the average, but if you look at the median, the midpoint of all the data, it's worse.

It's forty seconds.

Can you just put that in perspective?

If I'm just imagining myself sitting at my desk with my screen screens multiple because I can't just say one screen anymore in front of me.

Do you mean I'm looking?

So just take me, make me average most people do.

I'm staring at my screen for forty seven seconds, and I want I get a thing on my phone so I look at it.

I'm just trying to make this relatable.

Yeah, so you suddenly switch look at your phone, then you go back, you're trying to read an article.

Maybe you can pay attention for two or three minutes, but then all of a sudden, you've got texting, You check your email, you decided you want to check news, and so you have this flurry of screen changes and then maybe you go back, you read it, maybe spend another couple of minutes on the article.

So it's you know, it varies, there's variability, but we're talking about the average, and again we talk about the midpoint.

Right.

Half the data means is that our attention spans are longer than forty seconds, but half the data shows that our attention spans are shorter than forty seconds.

So if you take those these decades that you've been sort of tracking our screen use in things, Gloria, are you surprised by these results and what you see today or did you very much anticipate that this is the way things were going to go.

I was surprised.

I was initially surprised when I first started tracking attention because when I looked at all of our activities, not just paying attention to a screen, but how long people had interactions in the workplace, and how often they read documents.

That was every three minutes that people were switching activities, and if we just looked at attention, that was two and a half minutes.

That surprised me.

I thought it was going to be like ten minutes.

So having had that first shock, I guess you know, I was less surprised to see that they had diminished.

Is it a respective of age?

So yes, In the workplace, most of our workers were between twenty five and forty five or twenty five and fifty, we didn't see any age differences.

And the average attention span of young people in college was forty eight seconds, so there really wasn't any difference there.

Gloria, how do you track attention?

Yeah, so we use a software that can track when someone clicks on a window to bring it in the forefront.

Now, this is a proxy of where we're paying attention.

It's not perfect, but it's it's very good, and the assumption is that if a window is in the forefront, that you're paying attention.

Right.

It's not perfect, of course, but it does give us a sense of screen changes.

So every time someone clicks to bring some other window to the forefront.

Then you know, that's what we capture.

Okay, So if we we can either blame ourselves and and you know, just tell ourselves we're bad, we're useless, well plus what's wrong with us?

Or we can really and I'm sure we've done this, figure out what it is that's driving this change and attention span.

It can't be our faultually.

No, it's it's not.

I mean, we were not innocent, to be honest.

But there are a lot of factors going on.

So there are algorithms and as you know, every time we go on the web, we click on things that we like, we visit sites, and all of our web activity is captured and profiles of our interests are created.

And these profiles then are what tech companies use, ad remarketing companies use to gear information to us.

And so of course, if it's something you're interested in, it's it's hard to resist.

So, and algorithms are really quite sophisticated and powerful in capturing attention.

And of course they some of them appealed to very basic emotions like surprise and excitement and anger, and it's it's very hard to not be attracted to information that incites these kinds of emotions.

So there's that, because sorry, I'm just thinking.

An example of that would be, you know, we get our news online now, right, So I go to open my usual source of news from a no online newspaper, and before I know it, I'm looking at my favorite braind of running shoe and then I'm saying, oh, is it on sale?

Could I get it even cheaper?

And I've gone down that yeah, at least than forty seconds.

In my book, I write about a scenario about how I'm being tracked by boots because what happened to me once was I looked at a pair of boots and you know, I don't know, these are interesting?

But then I clicked away, and every time I went to a website, an image of those boots would appear.

They were taunting me, you know they would, you know they would, yeah, And you know it was it was hard to to not pay attention to them.

The only way out would be to purchase those boots.

So yes, but I quite like the expression you use being tracked by, because you do feel like you're being a bit stalked sometimes.

I mean, I wonder if that's quite a good way to think about it, just to keep your head in the right place.

So you mentioned the algorithms because you've got we've got this personal technology which probably on its own could be really useful and valuable in our lives.

But then we're we've added things to it.

And I'm presuming it's the adit the addition of the things like algorithms, and that that is the reason for this lack a focus.

But also there there are things that are just part of our humanity that we can't avoid.

For example, social dynamics.

We're social creatures and you know in real life we're attracted to other people.

We have pure pressure.

There's we deal in social capital.

So someone does a favor to you, you want to do a favor back.

So there's a number of these kinds of social dynamics that influence us when we're online.

So for example, why why do we check email?

Well, you might get that really important message and then but you also want to answer it because maybe you want that person to be able to do a favor for you someday and answer your email.

We answer text messages because we want to maintain social capital, so and slack the same kind of thing.

So there are all kinds of social dynamics that are just wrapped up into how we use our tech.

How long if we have been distracted, how long do we know how long it takes for us to get back on task?

Yeah, so we had measured this in terms of projects, so I have to I have to unwrap this.

So we switch our attention every forty seven seconds.

But some of that attention switching is within the same project.

So if I'm writing a I might be switching continually, but it's all about the same paper, so it's the same topic.

And we switch projects about every eleven minutes or so.

But when we switch out of a project, then it takes about twenty three and a half minutes to be able to resume work in that interrupted project.

And in case again I need a visual, So we're not sitting there for twenty three minutes going and then at twenty three minutes where we are just not effective, we're not productive on that task.

Is that what it is?

What we're actually doing is we're switching out of one project into another project.

We work on that and then we switch into another one, and then this is like the pattern of the data.

Then we start to switch again into another one, So we go back to the first one.

Right, so you're doing eleven minutes here, eleven minutes there, eleven minutes there.

Okay, exactly right, exactly So by the time you resume that interrupted work, the original project, your mind has been elsewhere, and then elsewhere again, and then again, and then you go back.

So it's very hard to reconstruct the work that you had originally been doing.

What do we do about that, Gloria?

It seems to me just understanding or maybe just being a little bit more aware when we sit down at our desks tomorrow or today of how we're working is probably the first step.

In order to do anything about our attention.

You probably have to kind of be a little bit honest about you to yourself with your own attention.

Yeah, of course we do.

We have to be aware of the problem, the fact that we have a hard time paying attention, the fact that there are so many distractions.

So absolutely that's the first step.

It's funny, isn't it, Because I don't know the physiological stuff around that don't mean things, but we think we're getting We think that that's quite fun right, going from project to project or going oh, that looks more and that's shinier.

I'll have a look at that.

I'll have a look at that.

But actually, what Francesca is talking about is learning yourself and adapting and maybe having a strategy around it is actually much more self soothing than the sort of frenetic changing around all the time.

Would that be right?

Absolutely?

Yeah.

So you know, people think that it helps our performance to be able to multitask, right, People think, wow, I'm a great multitasker.

I can get so much done.

But the reality is that it actually harms our performance.

But let me first explain that multitasking doesn't mean doing two things exactly at the same time, right.

Humans are not wired to be able to do that.

Our brains just don't work that way unless one of those things is automatic.

So you can walk and text at the same time.

Because walking is automatic, we're not thinking about it, we're thinking about texting.

But as soon as you know, I'm in New York City and we have crazy bicyclists, and as soon as a bicyclist tries to grind me over, I will stop texting and pay attention to that bicyclist.

So all of a sudden, it's walking is no longer automatic.

But back to multitasking, what we're actually doing is switching our attention rapidly.

So when we're working on multiple tasks and we think we're doing it at the same time, our attention is actually switching among these different tasks and we were We don't do that very well because that's not how our brains are wired to work.

Yeah, I think I've done a bit of a self experiment on that over a long period of time before I realized it wasn't working for me.

And quite often it is in to podcasts, whilst I was doing a less well what I considered a job that needed less attention.

That was perhaps I thought it was automatic, right, And I'd often notice I hadn't caught anything if I was concentrating on the work, hadn't caught anything of the podcast, and I'd have to keep rewinding or just making it worse, or I'd made an error on my data entry and I'd have to fix that, so that what you know, ends up regardless, ends up taking twice the time.

Yes, yeah, whereas.

I'm completely different.

I can't listen to a podcast and work.

I have to do one or the other.

I can't.

I you know, clearly I can't do that.

So true, So have we worked out if we are multitasking and we are going from one thing to another, it's less productive than if we were just focusing on one thing.

I'm presuming we've worked that out.

There are three reasons why it's less productive.

So the first reason is we make more errors.

And we know this from decades of studies in the laboratory that when people are you know, they're given a task and they're supposed to switch back and forth between them, they just simply make more errors.

Number two, it takes longer to do any one task.

So imagine that you were to work on a task through to completion and then you begin another task.

Well, we would do pretty well if that's how we worked, but that's not usually how people work.

They usually switch among these different tasks and then you have to do redundant work, You get interference, you forget where you are.

It just doesn't work very well.

It's like having an internal whiteboard in your mind, and every time you do a new task, you have to write the information you need on your mind's whiteboard, right, and so you're working on a task, you've got that information written inside your mind, and then you suddenly switch, so you have to erase that whiteboard and rape something new, and then you switch again.

And what we're doing when we're switching so fast is we're writing and erasing and writing and erasing, and it's just not very efficient.

So if we take it outside of the workplace and we're trying to have leash a time, because I know I self sabotage even my own leisure time, if you know what I mean, Like, why do we Franciski is the example when we were talking before you came on about reading a book and then thinking, oh, better, see what's happening, and then we'll pick up your phone.

Is it the same thing, like why do we do that to ourselves in the leisure time?

What's driving that?

It's habituation.

We're habituated to keep switching our attention.

And I've been interviewing a number of people recently about their tech us, and a lot of people have been reporting that it's very hard for them to read a book.

They used to be able to read and spend a long time with a book, and it's very very hard for them.

And I think it's that they're just habituated to switching so much and that it's carrying over into what they do off likee In trying to read a book.

No, I can't run the pavement anymore without having music in my ears.

But that's not distraction.

I just don't want to hear my breath or my feet hitting their pavement.

That's good distraction.

You're listening to the little things.

And our guest on the podcast today is Gloria Mark talking about our decreasing attention spans and what's behind it and how we can rEFInd our focus.

We'll be back shortly.

Okay, So we've identified that this might all be sounding very familiar to a lot of people and they're probably going, actually, that's really this is really interesting.

So what do we Where do we start, Gloria when it comes to trying to work on our attention span and you know, lengthen these periods of time we're focused.

Yeah, So the first thing that we can do is to be aware of these times when we're automatically switching.

So we're just not conscious of switching.

So think about when you have an urge to check the news, or an urge to check social media or check an e commerce site.

A lot of those things we do are automatic.

We're just we do them automatically.

We're not conscious of them.

Picking up your phone to swipe it open, right, It's a habit that we've developed.

And so the very first step is to start to become aware of the automaticity in our actions.

And then what we want to do is we want to make these automatic actions more conscious.

We want to be cond just when we're doing them.

So what I have done is I probe myself.

And I call this meta awareness, which means literally means being aware of what you're doing as it's unfolding.

And so if I'm working and I suddenly have an urge to check the news, and these days there's just a lot of news going on, especially in my country, I will probe myself, do I really need to check the news now?

So I have learned to become aware of when I'm about to switch.

And it takes practice, but you can do it.

And then I basically ask myself, do I need to do this right now?

Chances are no, really not, And so then I can become more intentional in my actions.

Okay, I don't need to check the news right now, And I can make a plant and I could say, Okay, I am going to work for another twenty minutes, and then I can reward myself and check the news.

So it's really about becoming more aware of your actions to help yourself regulation in what you're doing when you're using tech.

I've had quite an interesting experience this year, Gloria, and I think this is one reason why maybe my attention I've been able to work a little bit on my attention span is And the listeners will just giggle because I've mentioned this a few times, but I've started doing pottery, and so maybe once or twice a week, I go to a studio and for a couple of hours, I just focus.

I find I love it so so so much, and so I find myself focusing on creating something.

I'm using my hands.

I'm doing something completely different.

I don't have music in my ease, I have nothing.

I just focus on what I'm doing.

And I think that's the closest I've got into a state of flow in a long time.

And because in a way, because I've had that experience, I've kind of noticed that I can hold my attention span and other parts of my life longer, for longer.

But I'm going to be honest, I mean I don't have that same sense of flow in other parts of my life, like you know, sitting down to work or something like that.

It's quite a unique focus or kind of focus, isn't it.

Yeah, So it's wonderful that you're doing something like pottery, and absolutely once you get into the practice of paying attention to something, getting immersed in it, getting into a flow state, it absolutely can benefit you in other aspects.

Now in terms of flow, you know, I've been studying information workers knowledge workers for a long time.

It's very rare for them to get into a state of flow in their typical work because the kind of work they do is just not conducive for getting into flow.

It's more, you know, analytical kind of work.

But artists, musicians, people in sports, it's it's very conducive to get into flow.

My first career was being an artist, and so I would get into flow regularly.

I knew what it was like to be in flow.

When I went into psychology, didn't happen very often.

It's pretty rare.

Doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with it.

It's a different kind of reward that you feel right, you get fulfilled but in a different way.

It's not going to be a flow experience.

I think occasionally when I'm running, a can get in to flow where I don't notice the time passing and i've and I go, wow, that was that was crazy and you really look for that, but it's not doesn't happen every time.

So probably mindfulness is what I do.

And when I was doing that regularly, i'd have the same thing as Francesca.

I would I wouldn't notice other parts of my life felt smooth.

I have this sort of thing on my pin to my desk that somebody I was in Vancouver actually and somebody there was a Buddhist on side of the road.

He was handing them out, and it just says works smoothly, lifetime piece, and I think, as in peace, I think I need to put it right between my two screens because I remember, this is so beautiful.

It's just such a nice, meditative sort of thought.

But I do feel like we've been invaded.

And I was just thinking about the automation, about the picking up or responding even you know, even our watches tell us that we've got a message.

And I was thinking about driving and how you know we're actually risking our lives by being distracted.

It's it's bonkers, it is, it is bonkers.

Yeah, what is?

What would you define good attention span as.

So in terms of a number that I can't I can't give you a number because there's so much individual variation, But I would say it should be long enough that you should be able to accomplish what you feel you need to accomplish.

Forty seven seconds is too short.

I think spending an hour at a time is probably too long, unless unless you're in a state of flow and you're totally immersed, or you're reading a book and you're so caught up in the story, then that's perfectly fine.

But it's really important for us to take breaks so we you know, we shouldn't strive for just unbroken, long periods of focus because that's not healthy either.

And it's also not how our brains are built, because we have limited cognitive resources and they drain.

They drain when we're switching our attention, they drain when we're in an intense state of focus.

Not for flow, but you know, if you're doing some kind of analysis, right, you can't have our unbroken focus.

So it's really important to take breaks and let our minds replenishe.

You mentioned it being healthy there, and I just want to is there a connection between attention and strength or a mood.

Absolutely?

Yeah, So when they go hand in hand in the sense that when you're stressed, it's very hard to pay attention.

It interferes with our ability to pay attention, and so you know, there's we did a study where we looked at different personality traits and there's one personality trait which is called neuroticism, and that's that's a trait where people tend to be stressful and they tend to replay events over and over in their minds.

So you just had a talk with your colleague and it didn't go well, and you keep replaying that in your mind.

That's what neurotics tend to do.

And we find that neurotics have shorter attention spans then the none neurotics, right, because when you're replaying events in your mind, it interferes with your ability to pay attention to the task at hand.

I'm not sure how much you've gone into this, but is there a point at which we need to regulate this?

If people are not able to we can all take responsibility for our lack of attention and work on all of these fantastic things that you've been sharing with us today.

Is there a point that we go we lay it at the feet of some of the people who are actively trying to distract us with their algorithms and everything else, and say, you know, this is not good for humankind as a in general, and it's terrible for productivity.

I can only imagine there are reasons to regulate for this.

There are, and I'm an advocate for this kind of regulation, but it's an uphill about and if we wait for that, then we're really gonna be hurting ourselves.

So I do think that in the meantime we need to take action.

But I will tell you some positive types of regulation that we're seeing.

Some countries have right to disconnect laws, like France has the ele comrie law, Ontario, Canada, I believe, the Philippines if I'm not mistaken.

I believe Belgium, possibly Ireland if I recall correctly.

These are laws which protect workers who do not answer electronic communications after work hours.

Yeah, I think Australia has done it too.

Australia is good for good for Australia and it protects them and it allows them to psychological disconnect from work at the end of the day.

And that's really important because we need an unbroken period of time where we're really disconnecting from work so that it helps protect against burnout.

Right, burnout is it is at a high so is chronic stress.

And so if people can have a period of time where they're just not dealing with work, they're better able to psychologically reconnect the next day.

And what does that mean?

That means being more engaged and being more motivated in work.

Because you've got to wonder how much more we can take.

Right, We're kind of at a saturation level when it comes to online content and our emails and apps and social media and devices and things like that.

Yes, yeah, no, it's and it is really crazy, and there's there are so many different sources of distractions and there's always one more communication app that's being developed, So it is it is really crazy.

And you know, I have a particular problem with slack.

On the one hand, I mean the aim of it is very is very good because you can have direct messaging and answer queries from your colleagues really fast.

But what happens is you end up getting a number of Slack channels, and you're on twenty thirty sixty different Slack channels, and you're always having to keep up and answer.

I was talking about this at work the other day and someone was said to be, Oh, no, I've got a great ad, and I said, I'm not sure an app is the best way to solve an attention issue.

But this little app had a character, Hank or someone, and he'd knit you a pair of socks or something so you didn't want to pick up.

Its an animation, and it would you would go, Okay, I'm gonna I'm not gonna pick up my phone for thirty minutes, and so you'd set that on Hank, and Hank would start this little character would start knitting and everything, and if you picked up that, it could detect your sort of picking up.

I think the phone and Hank would give you this look, going, your socks are gonna unravel if you kind of, you know, use your phone.

But I thought, well, this is I suppose that's one way of creating a new habit.

But I was kind of amused by the fact that took an app to stop you picking up your phone and look at a yeah yeah.

Yeah, well, and it's also a distraction because you're thinking about the socks and raveling.

How many pairs of socks can I get?

And then then of course it works like an app.

You get tokens and then you can buy oh you applauding to put on Hank's wall or something.

I'm probably getting all the names completely.

I see that.

To me, my time are on my phone works adequately, Gloria.

What about learning new skills?

And I'm going to go back to the pottery here, folks, But if you learn new skills, can that help us kind of you know, make our brain be a little bit more focused.

Absolutely.

So.

Our brains are producing new neurons all the time neurogenesis, and some of those neurons survive and some of them don't.

That's that's natural.

But we can help those neurons survive, some of them by doing challenging activities.

And we know that when people take up learning a new language, or learning to play an instrument, or doing some mentally challenging activities like problems.

So I think that it can help these these neurons survive.

So it can help make our brains healthier, and we also know that it seems to have promise for delaying dementia and cognitive impairment.

So it's really important for people to be challenging their minds.

Do we need to worry that that young people's brains are because I know you know a little bit about neuroplasticity, But do we need to worry that pathways are being changed in young people's brains?

Well, there's there are some people that worry about it, and there is some some research that suggests that young people's brains are being affected.

There are some claims that young people act as though they have dementia.

They don't have dementia, they don't, but their behavior might seem to have certain similar characteristics as people with dementia.

But you know, it's hard to know.

This is a huge experiment that we're in the digital age, and you know, is what's going to happen in twenty five years with people's minds.

That's part of this experiment that we're going to see.

It's quite a terrifying experiment.

Flora, Yes, maybe we could sum up if you wouldn't mind, would you be able to just remind us of the little things that we can do to increase our focus and attention.

Yes, so let me go back to this idea of practicing meta awareness is learning to become aware of when you're distracted, when you're doing these automatic habits, and probing yourself to ask yourself if is it necessary to do that, or if you're already let's say, on social media, to recognize that, hey, I've been there for some time, am I getting value?

And if not leave, it's time to leave.

We can also practice what's called forethought, which is if you're a person who's tempted by say social media, or you're a news junkie, imagine your day at the end of the day and have a visualization of where you want to be, where you see yourself at the end of the day, and how you want to feel.

You know, what is your goal.

My goal would be I want to be rewarded.

I want to be fulfilled.

I want to see myself on the couch reading, you know, being with my family.

The last thing I want to do is still working on that report and it's ten o'clock at night.

So having an image of how you see yourself at the end of the day can be very powerful to help keep keep you on track.

Another thing we talked about taking breaks very important, taking breaks to stay replenished.

If you can take a break outside in nature, that's the absolute best kind of break that we can take, because being in nature can really replenish us.

It's also important to consider that our attention it waxes and wanes throughout the day, and this goes along with this idea that we have limited cognitive resources.

Sometimes we have a lot, sometimes they're drained.

But every person has their own personal rhythm of these peaks and valleys of attention, and you can get to learn when your peaks are, and probably you have a pretty good idea.

Most people in our studies tend to have a peak mid morning and then another peak mid afternoon, but it varies if you're an early type.

Your chronotype is an early type, or if your chronotype is a late type, your peaks and valleys will be a little bit different.

But once you identify when your peaks and valleys are, you can plan to do those tasks that require the hardest work and the most creativity when your attention is at its peak.

So for your peak times, you know, if I'm writing something, I'm going to make sure i'm writing.

Usually it's faring around nine o'clock because that's when my peak time starts, and then I go into this valley, which is probably around close to lunchtime, and then that's the time to take a break and replenish.

And the last thing you want to do is do email in your peak time.

Don't want to do that in your peak time.

You want to save it for hard work.

That's fantastic advice.

That's really good advice.

Quite I was just sitting here thinking about my peaks and my valleys, and when you made that mention there about not doing your emails and your peakers, it's like, of course, you're just wasting all this really valuable time where it's got to go to the kind of the maybe the most challenging task of the day.

Or yeah, yeah.

I used to live by that old adage about eating the frog.

If somebody told you at some point of the day, you've got to eat a frog, why would you not?

Why would you sit around all day thinking about eating the frog.

You just get up and eat the frog and then it's done.

That's that's what I do.

My most challenging to ask.

What I love this is what.

I love doing a podcast with Louise Gloria.

I never know what she's going to say next.

I've never had a New Zealand, I've never eaten a frog.

No, I can't never heard this.

Oh well I'll source it.

It's definitely a real thing.

I mean, nobody's eating frogs.

Gloria, thank you so much for your time I think you've given us.

You know, we're all just trying to get to the end of the year.

You know, the everyone gets a bit tired at this point of the year and the stress and the burnout is building.

So it's a really good time just to stop and rethink our day a little bit.

So really appreciate all your tips.

Thank you so much.

We thank you for having me.

So let me just explain that the frog thing.

I'm sure other listeners have heard of this.

I'm sure they have, along with the Greasy Pancake and the men the other wonderful littless you've given us this, our lovely producer has found.

The original credit was Mark Twain.

The concept is based on eat a live frog first thing in the morning, nothing worse will happen for the rest of the day.

And now that's but antiquated, then it was adapted to be a productivity thing if you basically saying, if you do your hardest thing first, then rested.

So that makes aug also like, sure, you could choose to eat the frog at the end of the day, franchiesca, but all you're going to think about is even the frog, and you're not gonna get anything else done.

Thank you for that explanation, because I was just wondering why we were eating frogs in the first place.

Now one's a eating frogs.

Look.

Gloria's book is Attention Span if you would like to read more, she also has a sub stack, the Future of Attention.

She talks a lot about attention in our brains and technology and all sorts of things.

So there's just a few places where you can find out more from Gloria, and.

Then you have it cut.

Francisca, we have pretty much come to the end of season five Things.

Crazy Crazy would have been your highlights?

Well, that was a pretty good one.

That could be quite life changing.

I have enjoyed the season very very much, and I think from everything from Michico talking about fashion.

Oh I know, she wasn't she loving?

She was so nervous about coming and doing that podcast, and she was fabulous.

She was gorgeous and so non judgmental, and that's sort of I think we do choose good guests.

Yeah, I know, And didn't you make you just want to put out a bit of color and try something different and no, really positive loved it.

So that was a good one.

Kylie, A little bit like today's one.

Gave me a few sort of little tricks I can play oh myself if you like, or little fat little hacks I can do for myself.

I love Kylie Wilson just because I will never be an elite athlete, but I kind of I'm quite fascinated by what makes them take.

So I just loved the sports chat.

I just like hearing, yeah, the conversations out sort of the tips and techniques that leaked athletes use.

I loved doctor Caroline Girvich and that was our episode that we did kind of kind of on middle aged rage and anger and the impact that our hormones have on our brains.

And what I loved about it was women were saying to us.

I got my partner or my husband to listen to it, and they just came back to me and they went oh, okay, I get it, you know, like, and that made me feel like, you know, it was worth coming to work.

Yeah, I got that too.

It was like, I am so pleased it was helpful.

I'm so pleased, you know, you're not out there on your own.

And yes, it is very common and normal, and I'm glad now that other people around you, who are probably wondering who the hell you are, understand why it's happening.

That's right, I mean there is a very validous, evidence based reason.

Yeah, very much.

I still have to go back to our very first guest this year.

If I take a look at the whole year, like and if you look at the advice we've been given, what you've taken might have worked for you, And Lara Bryden is still probably a bit of a game changer for me with the metabolism reset and just getting my head around and we spoke about this throughout the year with different things with alcohol and things like that, just getting my head around the just cutting back on those ultra processed foods, cutting back on the alcohol and the sugar and just eating well and the difference it's made.

And I'm you know, like, I'm probably the slowest weight loser ever.

But I have not been sick this year.

My immune system has been so much better.

My knees no longer randomly swell, the inflammation is down.

You know.

I've seen all these benefits just from you know, sort of reducing information in my body and just looking after myself a little bit better.

And so that's been That was excellent advice for me this year.

Yeah, I need to I need to look at that again.

Obviously it's been a funny year.

You know.

I chose that silly word at the beginning of the year, and what did you choose?

Strong?

Oh?

Strong, And it's like it's like it's like the universe said, okay, lou, let's just check a few things at you.

And especially in the last few weeks, just been a bit off.

So I will listen to Lara again.

Actually, and I did all of the books, so I will start start to focus.

Then.

I'd just like to thank all our guests on season five this year, in particular that I just like to say especial thank you to doctor Lucy Hohne, who shared such a personal story with us about dementia, and also Lorna Riley, who also shared a really personal story, but gave us so much positivity when it comes to life after divorce.

Yep.

And I got a lot from talking to Justin Colson as well, just to top up on some of that parenting stuff and some really fascinating insights that probably only a psychologist with a pH d would actually know.

How's your emergency fund coming along?

It was coming great.

You did tell me not to not to jinx it, and you know, tell you that I have started an emergency fund and then we had an emergency.

Yeah, no, it's bloody great.

Thanks very much, but a really big thank you to you too for joining us on this season of the Little Things.

We hope you share this podcast with the women and men in your lifet week and all well after today.

Regain some focus at some point in our day in one of those valleys or peaks.

Somewhere in there, somewhere in there, and I think we are going to be back next year, aren't we.

Friendships, We sure can look forward to more of us, well, not more of us, just the two of us.

Still, thank you.

There might be more of me after summer, to be honest with you, quite possibly.

You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio.

Or wherever you get your podcasts, and for more episodes from us on other topics here to MZ herald dot co dot MZED

And we will definitely catch you next year on the Little Things