Pay Attention! 5 Tips for Improving Your Attention Span

LISTENING is one of the rules of improv. When you watch an improvised scene, it is immediately obvious when someone in the scene has missed something important. You'll see an actor call another character by the wrong name, or walk through that imaginary wall that was established earlier in the scene. It takes the audience out of the scene, because they ARE listening and it bothers them when another actor in the scene is NOT! It gives the audience the impression that the actor who wasn't paying attention is just too self-important to be bothered with listening to the other players.

The same goes for the "real world". When you aren't paying attention, people NOTICE! Don't fool yourself into thinking that they don't!

When we apply the rules of improv to the "real world" I always expand the improv rule of listening to include PAYING ATTENTION to everything: conversations, presentations, body language, emails -you name it. We need to pay attention to everything.

Seriously! Haven't we ALL been in that meeting with the annoying goober who doesn't have a CLUE about what's going on? You know who I'm talking about, the person who obviously ignored the email that was sent out, pre-meeting with the subject line: PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE OUR NEXT MEETING. That person inevitably asks long-winded questions that they THINK make them look important/involved but really, they are just revealing their ignorance on the topic! Oh, and they're usually late to the meeting, too!

To make matters worse, that goober is paying such LITTLE attention that they don't even notice the rolling of the eyes, the gnashing of the teeth and the overall FRUSTRATED body language from their peers. Am I right?

Paying attention can be taught, just like any other skill. At every improv class I teach, at least half the exercises we do are designed to increase focus and attention.

If you suspect that you aren't great at paying attention here are some tips to get BETTER at it:

1. Take an improv class -seriously, there are many options out there.
2. Block out a half hour before meetings to review any notes/emails that were sent prior to the meeting, in fact, as soon as you get a meeting invitation, block out your calendar so you can do this.
3. Take NOTES. Evernote is a great tool, I use it on ALL my devices so I can always review.
4. Focus on the speaker, not on your reply. Comment on what the speaker has just said INSTEAD of bringing up a new talking point or starting a new conversation.
5. Start being brutally honest; the pain of 'fessing up to not remembering a name, key point, meeting, etc is one of the the best ways to train yourself to pay more attention!

Just Do It

"Just Do It" is really much more than an advertising slogan. It truly is a call to action.

Doing is active. Thinking is passive.

How many of your friends talk endlessly about their dreams but never make even one step?

Or, are YOU that friend? Endlessly talking and thinking but never doing?

Doing -to me- means making one step and then another.

You want to be a writer? Then write. Every day. The act of writing makes you a writer. Getting published is icing on the cake. But, you cannot get published if you only THINK about writing. The most prolific writes just get up and do it. Like a job. Every day.

You want a gorgeous garden? Then plant something. Watch it grow. Nurture it. Water it. Then plant something else.

DO.