N. Raghuraman's column: Increase increments by focusing on focus

Remember the common scene in the movies when the hospital staff rushes a patient to the operation theatre. Immediately the red light comes on and the camera goes to that light, the nearby clock and the faces of the family members standing outside. Stress, anxiety and mental fatigue are seen on the faces. The music director also plays some similar music. As long as the red light is on, no one can go inside. Inside, the doctor is working calmly. He stretches out his hand and the nurse gives him scissors, cotton, tools. He removes the bullet from the body. Finally again asks for cotton, a tool for stitching and a plaster to close the wound. All this time, the red light is on and no one can come there except the nurse wearing the apron, who keeps coming and going to get the necessary things for the operation. This red light means, 'Don't disturb the doctor', because he needs focus to save the patient's life. In the next scene, the clock has moved forward a few hours and the doctor comes out and removes the mask to talk to the family. One such experiment was carried out by the authors of the book 'Focus On-Off: Fuel Your Attention, Get More Done'. They conducted an experiment on office workers in which they could turn on red lights while working—which meant 'do not disturb'. He also had the green light, which told others that he could now talk to them. When the experiment ended, most of the co-workers kept the red lights on all day. This shows how desperate people are to get focus. Authors Oscar de Bos and Mark Tigchelar say that the concept of an open office is like a distracting maze. Today, most companies are thinking about how to increase the focus of employees. The two authors conduct sessions for PricewaterhouseCooper, L'Oréal, and many large banks and law firms. This is because in just one hour on the screen, our attention changes an astonishing 77 times. We keep going from one tab to another and check the inbox 74 times a day. In 2004, we could concentrate for 2.5 minutes on a screen, while in 2016 we could not last more than 47 seconds. The focus span for 2026 is not yet available, but the authors are convinced that most of us pick up the phone more out of boredom than any work. These sobering findings by researcher and author Gloria Mark, who studies technology, focus and stress, explain the decrease in our attention span. As technology continues to distract us, consume time, and undermine meaningful experiences, therapists are trying new ways to return people's focus to the things that really matter. As constant disruptions are leading to problems such as irritability, anxiety, fatigue, sleep problems and decreased cognitive abilities such as low IQ, we are worried about where our time on screens flies. For this, people are taking therapy, companies are asking employees to increase focus. Everyone is embarrassed that the algorithm is always winning and we are not able to do the important tasks of life with focus. The trick is that employers will want the same employee who will be able to show focus on work by turning on a red light or in other ways. The future of increments hinges on focus.