Absent-mindedness - A Verdict Of Fate Or Not A Problem?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

From the author: The article was written by order of the editorial board of the journal "Personnel Service and Personnel", and was published there. But the topic raised in it is always relevant.

In the cinema, people often confuse houses, apartments, are late for important meetings, come to the wrong place or meet the wrong ones, and everything ends there in a fun, romantic way. But in life, such absent-mindedness can be expensive, and at work it can even end up being fired. Modern life is dynamic. Today, speed of reaction and accuracy of execution are synonymous with success.

Everyday bustle leads to the fact that each of us at least once in our life on the way to work worried about the iron not turned off or remembered by the end of Friday about the weekly report not made. Sociologists have proven that at least 55% of the inhabitants of modern cities suffer from absent-mindedness to one degree or another, and more than 15% - to the degree of a chronic illness. Although in Russian culture, absent-mindedness was never considered as a terrible flaw and was often considered an integral part of a person who is passionate about his work, and therefore somewhat detached and perceives the rest as insignificant trifles. And almost all psychologists reassure, considering our shortcomings as payment for the existing advantages. But life practice shows that neither bosses nor colleagues dislike uncollected workers, even though they have such qualities as kindness, responsiveness, honesty, resourcefulness, etc.

The relevance of the topic is confirmed by a number of professions, where absent-mindedness can lead not only to annoying misunderstandings, but also irreparable consequences. These include public transport drivers, train drivers, air traffic controllers, doctors. The price of their mistake is human life!

So what is absent-mindedness and where does it come from?

A person can be called absent-minded if he is easily distracted from current thoughts and jumps from one case to another. For example, an employee was given an important document for execution. On the way to his workplace, he looked at his colleagues, then into the smoking room, drank a cup of coffee with others, discussed the weather forecast for the weekend with someone else … And an hour later, (well, at least kill me!), Does not remember where left the document. And at the same time, no one deliberately bothered him with additional affairs, did not distract him with unnecessary questions. It is easy to imagine what might be the reaction of a colleague or boss to this situation? Anyway, it’s good if they gave us a copy and the original was preserved somewhere … Why did this happen?

Absent-mindedness does not arise from scratch. There are many factors that provoke it. This is a person's preoccupation with other matters; and the stress experienced; and physical and / or mental fatigue; age-related changes; monotonous or detailed activity; and interference that provokes errors of perception and much more. Several reasons for its occurrence have also been found.

The first one is genetic distraction - there are people chronically uncollected since childhood. Even in childhood, they imitated one of their parents, who also suffered from a similar ailment. They were not taught to return things to their place, to carry out the daily routine. They are accustomed to dragging out the execution time, finding for this a thousand "objective" reasons and "super-urgent" cases. It can be difficult for them even to wake up on time, remember (?!): another five minutes, another minute, a little more and …

Another reason - habitual distraction, lies in the fact that all our behavior consists of stereotyped actions, "learned" from childhood at the subconscious level, and when we are distracted by insignificant trifles, we do not even notice it. Often, starting something important, people habitually engage in extraneous activities: walking aimlessly, biting their nails, sorting through objects on the table, straightening their clothes, etc. They do not remember this, because the human brain, protecting the body from sensory overabundance, filters out unnecessary information. We do not remember how we bend the knee when walking, or squeeze our fingers around the handrail when the trolleybus jerks hard. Our perception of the environment is selective, from which it turns out that time "flew", what it was filled with - we do not know, but for good performance it is no longer there, and we have to work in an emergency mode, when mistakes are usually inevitable. In exactly the same way, some people "habitually" ignore valuable instructions on the rational execution of a task or important points in a document they have read, and then notice their mistake with surprise.

There is another version about protective absent-mindedness - how to protect the body from mental exhaustion. It occurs with chronic fatigue and emotional burnout of a person living in constant tension of their physical and mental resources. Psychologists also distinguish psychological distraction as the ability of the psyche to defend itself from negative experiences. For example, if a person does not like the subject with whom it is necessary to negotiate, then on the way to a meeting with him there are a lot of distractions, some phone calls, the traffic light does not work, etc., the result of which is delay, i.e. … a person psychologically pushes aside an unpleasant moment for himself. There are people not so much scattered as by nature endowed with a delayed reaction, a kind of lifelong "kapushi" who, due to their innate temperament, cannot do everything quickly.

As you can see, there are many factors and causes of absent-mindedness. But in all cases, the main symptom is a violation of a person's ability to concentrate on something. Scientifically, concentration is defined as the ability to keep attention on any specific object that a person distinguishes from the general background. That is, attention establishes a connection of consciousness with a certain object, and concentration of attention ensures that a person is focused on it. Thus, concentration of attention is understood as the intensity of concentration of consciousness on an object. When concentration is lowered, then a person's attention is dispersed between objects, often even unrelated to each other.

So is it possible to get rid of absent-mindedness and how?

Here are some tips from psychologists:

1. It is necessary to maintain consistency in thoughts and actions - this is helped by a clear planning of affairs for the day.

2. It is necessary to accustom yourself to a clear distribution - to do only one thing at a certain period of time.

3. Strictly observe the rule - each thing has its place.

4. Alternate the mode of work and rest - to give rest to the mind, not to burden it constantly with work.

5. Glue yourself visual cues - stickers-cheat sheets on your computer monitor, desktop, refrigerator, etc.

6. Free your head from unnecessary information: phone numbers, memorable dates, events - to store information there are electronic notepads, reminders on the phone, the section of affairs and notes in the same place.

7. Postponing clarification of relations with a colleague or loved one at the end of the working day or week - this will also help get rid of unnecessary emotions, will give you the opportunity to take time out and collect your thoughts.

How else can you work on yourself?

Develop new habits. For example, constant delays are easily corrected by an elementary deception of perception: you need to move all your hours 15-20 minutes ahead. It is not a big deal if you arrive somewhere ahead of time, but if you are “late” in your time, it will turn out that you appeared just in time. You can act differently, in the morning, immediately after waking up, set the clock to the time when it is already necessary to leave the house. Psychologically, this activates and helps to focus on the training camp. Over time, this method will wean you from the hustle and bustle, unnecessary movements and activities.

Train your attention. Attention is closely related to perception - as the ability to recognize and fix signals from the environment. All advertising is based on perception: a minimum of information and a maximum of vivid images. Try, on the way to work, to isolate possible individual images from the crowd. For example, remember how many red cars have passed or there are advertising posters. In the evening, you need to recall the number of the first red car or what was written / drawn on the first advertising poster. So gradually you can learn to concentrate your attention on something independently given, in addition to appear leisurely thoughts and the ability to highlight distinctive features.

Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Sometimes we think: "how not to forget to do this" and … Do not delay - do it right away! If at the moment there is no way to complete your plan, leave a reminder. It can be a timer, an alarm clock, a piece of paper under a magnet, an entry in an organizer. The main thing is to make wider use of all the opportunities that modern technologies offer us.

Fight psychobiology! Everyone knows that people are divided into four types of temperament. In the melancholic, who gets tired faster than other types, absent-mindedness arises as a defense. For a phlegmatic person, slowness and viscosity of thinking is an innate feature. It is impossible to change the temperament, but it is really possible to direct it in the right direction. Nothing teaches you how to react to what is happening so well and quickly as physical activity. If you engage in any active sport (tennis, football, even darts or cycling), at least once or twice a week, then general endurance will soon increase, and the reaction rate will increase. The movement activates the work of the main body systems - respiratory, circulatory and nervous. The functioning of the brain, which, as you know, is responsible for everything, depends on their normal and well-coordinated work.

Revive your memory. Above, we have already stopped at the jokes of our memory, when it ignores negative signals and an excess of sensory stimuli. Insidious memory destroys not only unnecessary information, but also important for work. There are many techniques for training her. One of the simplest: before going to bed, remember in every detail the whole day, hour after hour, trying not to miss a single trifle. Recall the names of people you talked to, phone numbers, conversation topics, etc. This exercise will also help you fall asleep faster and sleep well.

Be calm! When starting any important business, try to calm down. Plan time with a margin in order to be able to devote at least five minutes only to yourself: to sit, lie down, listen to your favorite music, not thinking about anything, in order to put your thoughts in order. Unnecessary excitement takes a lot of energy, which is wiser to save for effective work. Such a useful habit will teach you to save psycho-resources and focus on the main thing, getting down to your plans.

Give my word of honor! A little jokingly, a little bit seriously, you can loudly promise your friends and colleagues that next time, in case of your mistake, you will give everyone a bottle of champagne. Calculating possible costs is a very good incentive to improve.

Fighting absent-mindedness is easy and possible. The main thing is that a person himself wants to cultivate new qualities in himself, adding them to the already existing advantages, which together will bring well-deserved success.