At work we have meetings before we open or when we close and are about to go home. Now let me toot my own horn here; people at work tend to listen to what I have to say because I’ve been at my job for so long. I know the ins and outs better than almost anyone; when I give advice or constructive criticism it’s usually for a reason, not just to try to make myself look good. However, a couple nights ago, at our closing meeting, I just could not pay attention to what was going on. It was 10:50 at night, there was a party that I was supposed to go to after work with some friends who I hadn’t seen in a long time, and I wanted to get out of there. My manager and other coworkers were talking, and I absolutely was not listening. I had too much internal noise going on: “should I run home and change? Do I need to bring anything? Does my hair look okay? They’re talking forever, why can’t we just GO!?”
In reality I’m not sure what could have helped me avoid this. There are times that you just think things are more important. In reality, a lot of our closing meetings are the same: what sales were, if anything important happened, any funny stories of the night. I suppose I could have tried to switch shifts with someone, but then again, that’s the easy way out.
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I have experienced the same things before. Often times, we get distracted or preoccupied with something else and then it becomes really hard to focus on what is going on. It is really hard to force our brains to stop thinking about the other thing going on, especially if it is something really good or something really bad. It reminds me of when I got married and my wedding was on a Saturday and i went to work on a Friday. I was so preoccupied by my wedding that I could not focus on the professional task at hand.
ReplyDeleteI wish that we all had the capacity to just take thoughts in and compartmentalize them in our brains somewhere and not think of them until we are supposed to. However, that would probably require having some superpower!
Hi Nessaw27
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. I can totally related to you because I have the same problem all the time when I am in a lecture class. Sometimes I don’t even realize I am doing it and not paying attention to the class. Internal noise is something I am still trying to get rid of and focus whatever is more important. Even when I am reading blogs, I can still get distracted easily with my own thoughts like “what am I going to eat later?” It happens very often to me and I have to constantly remind myself to shift my attention back on track.
-Sogo