This video shows how narrow your focus can be. You'll have some fun, and what is revealed at the end is surprising. So pay attention as you watch the video. See what you notice.
It was done by pychologist, magician, and author Prof Richard Wiseman. Click here for background information about this video and the psychology behind it.
In part 1 of this post, we examined Change Blindness and how we can miss incredibly obvious things (right in front of us) if our attention is focused elsewhere.
In an information-rich environment, attention is a scarce and essential resource.
Think how often your focus blinds you to the obvious.
Here are two books written by Professor Wiseman. The first is called Quirkology, and it is about discoving big truths in small things. The second is called 59 Seconds, and it is about little things that make big differences.
Daniel Simons' experiments on visual awareness have become famous. The primary conclusion drawn from his research is that we can miss incredibly obvious things, right in front of us, if our attention is focused elsewhere.
Test Your Awareness.
Watch this video and count how many passes the team in white makes.
This is worth doing so you experience it yourself.
Try to ignore the black team. Just focus on the white team, and see if you can accurately count how many times they pass the ball.
OK, click the video to do it now.
Did you get the right answer? Even though I knew what to expect, the result or effect was surprising.
By the way, there is a newer version of this video, here.
Think how often your focus blinds you to the obvious.
Change Blindness.
Missing an invisible gorilla or a moon-walking bear may seem strange. However, the next experiment may be more surprising.
This video demonstrates "change blindness". In an experiment, 75% of the participants didn't notice that the experimenter who bent under a counter was replaced by a different person.
If you liked that, here is a version done by Derrin Brown. It is quite clever and worth watching. It was even more surprising to me because it was done in public with "real people". How did people not notice a white male switching with a black guy (or an asian female) in the middle of a conversation?
Warning: Objects In Your Attention Span Are Fewer Than You Perceive.
Moment by moment, the brain selectively processes information it deems most relevant. Experiments, like these, show the limits of our capacity to encode, retain, and compare visual information from one glance to the next.
More importantly, this suggests that our awareness of our visual surroundings is far more sparse than most people intuitively believe. Consequently, our intuition can deceive us far more often than we perceive.
Clearly, in an information-rich environment, attention is a scarce and essential resource. So, pay attention (or automate the things you know need to be done right, every time).
Daniel Simons' experiments on visual awareness have become famous. The primary conclusion drawn from his research is that we can miss incredibly obvious things, right in front of us, if our attention is focused elsewhere.
Test Your Awareness.
Watch this video and count how many passes the team in white makes.
This is worth doing so you experience it yourself.
Try to ignore the black team. Just focus on the white team, and see if you can accurately count how many times they pass the ball.
OK, click the video to do it now.
Did you get the right answer? Even though I knew what to expect, the result or effect was surprising.
By the way, there is a newer version of this video, here.
Think how often your focus blinds you to the obvious.
Change Blindness.
Missing an invisible gorilla or a moon-walking bear may seem strange. However, the next experiment may be more surprising.
This video demonstrates "change blindness". In an experiment, 75% of the participants didn't notice that the experimenter who bent under a counter was replaced by a different person.
If you liked that, here is a version done by Derrin Brown. It is quite clever and worth watching. It was even more surprising to me because it was done in public with "real people". How did people not notice a white male switching with a black guy (or an asian female) in the middle of a conversation?
Warning: Objects In Your Attention Span Are Fewer Than You Perceive.
Moment by moment, the brain selectively processes information it deems most relevant. Experiments, like these, show the limits of our capacity to encode, retain, and compare visual information from one glance to the next.
More importantly, this suggests that our awareness of our visual surroundings is far more sparse than most people intuitively believe. Consequently, our intuition can deceive us far more often than we perceive.
Clearly, in an information-rich environment, attention is a scarce and essential resource. So, pay attention (or automate the things you know need to be done right, every time).
Professor Philip Zimbardo explains how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Zimbardo is talking about psychological time (subjective time), not the objective time dictated by the clocks on our phones. As you might guess, "time" influences how we perceive ourselves, how we view relationships, and how we act in the world.
This short video offers some eye-opening insights.
Below is the illustrated version of "The Secret Powers of Time". The original video of Zimbardo speaking at a podium follows. While it has the same message, the visuals are very different. This side-by-side comparison shows the value of visual synthesis note-taking.
Back when I was in school, my father asked me to do something. I don't remember what it was, specifically … but it was a normal thing for a father to ask a son to do.
Later that day, while we were talking, he asked how my day went. I told him about all the things I did. Then, he asked whether I did the thing he asked me to do. I tried to explain that because of how busy I had been, I didn't have time to do what he asked.
He frowned, and I still remember the look in his eye when he told me that from his standpoint, I hadn't done anything.
That put things in a different context.
Each day we make a host of commitments great and small. If my to-do list has 15 items on it, and I do the 13 or 14 of them … then on one hand, I can feel good about how productive I was. Yet, on the other hand, chances are that the one or two things I didn't do were the only things that were supposed to get done for the person whose task got put off until another day.
Getting Things Done.
Stephen Covey makes a big distinction between importance versus urgency. It's easy to lose sight of what needs to get done if you fill your day with interruptions, distractions, busywork, or time-wasters.
By understanding what is both important and urgent it's easy to clarify the value of what really needs to get done.
Understanding why things need to get done is also a big step forward in terms of prioritizing what you commit to do. For example, Scott Scheper suggests your goal should be to balance out your tasks so that 20% are spent on reactive tasks, and 80% are spent on proactive tasks. Why? Because reactive tasks will make you a living, while proactive tasks will make you successful.
Ultimately, there are many ways to sort, sift, filter and prioritize your list.
There is a rule-of-thumb that 20% of your activities will account for 80 percent of your success (this is often called the "Pareto Principle" or the "80%-20% Rule"). In other words, if you have 100 tasks in your task list, there probably will be about 20 of those that are the key ones to focus on. The key is to find a prioritization method that helps you pinpoint these tasks.
I use several tools. Toodledo and Nozbe are both easy-to-use online to-do lists with a great iPhone client. For teams, I highly recommend the stuff from 37 Signals.
Back when I was in school, my father asked me to do something. I don't remember what it was, specifically … but it was a normal thing for a father to ask a son to do.
Later that day, while we were talking, he asked how my day went. I told him about all the things I did. Then, he asked whether I did the thing he asked me to do. I tried to explain that because of how busy I had been, I didn't have time to do what he asked.
He frowned, and I still remember the look in his eye when he told me that from his standpoint, I hadn't done anything.
That put things in a different context.
Each day we make a host of commitments great and small. If my to-do list has 15 items on it, and I do the 13 or 14 of them … then on one hand, I can feel good about how productive I was. Yet, on the other hand, chances are that the one or two things I didn't do were the only things that were supposed to get done for the person whose task got put off until another day.
Getting Things Done.
Stephen Covey makes a big distinction between importance versus urgency. It's easy to lose sight of what needs to get done if you fill your day with interruptions, distractions, busywork, or time-wasters.
By understanding what is both important and urgent it's easy to clarify the value of what really needs to get done.
Understanding why things need to get done is also a big step forward in terms of prioritizing what you commit to do. For example, Scott Scheper suggests your goal should be to balance out your tasks so that 20% are spent on reactive tasks, and 80% are spent on proactive tasks. Why? Because reactive tasks will make you a living, while proactive tasks will make you successful.
Ultimately, there are many ways to sort, sift, filter and prioritize your list.
There is a rule-of-thumb that 20% of your activities will account for 80 percent of your success (this is often called the "Pareto Principle" or the "80%-20% Rule"). In other words, if you have 100 tasks in your task list, there probably will be about 20 of those that are the key ones to focus on. The key is to find a prioritization method that helps you pinpoint these tasks.
I use several tools. Toodledo and Nozbe are both easy-to-use online to-do lists with a great iPhone client. For teams, I highly recommend the stuff from 37 Signals.
There are times in life when it is hard to imagine finding a path to victory.
So often the answer is as simple as committing to the outcome desired, showing-up, playing full-out, and giving your best until there is absolutely nothing left.
There are times in life when it is hard to imagine finding a path to victory.
So often the answer is as simple as committing to the outcome desired, showing-up, playing full-out, and giving your best until there is absolutely nothing left.
and 
