How Workspaces Can Help Manage Attention Span
In workplaces throughout the world, scenarios of near-constant distraction have become the norm. We text during conversations, email during meetings, eat lunch at our desks to catch up on work—always trying to process faster, increase our productivity, and work harder, often without realizing just how much we’re degrading our mental capabilities in the process. Thankfully, our ability to focus is still salvageable.
Science to the rescue.
As a result of the vast amount of neuroscience research being done, there’s now hard evidence on what attention is, how it works, how to attain it, and how to use it productively. By delving into recent findings, researchers have garnered new insights into how our brains shape thoughts, emotions and behaviors, and then these same researchers have applied this new science to create concepts for how thoughtfully designed workplaces can help workers better manage their attention. By leveraging the full capacity of our brains and our environments, it’s now possible to think better at work, and the results can be astonishing.
As a delicate, energy-hungry organ, neuroscientists are constantly learning more and more about the human brain. For example, the average human brain uses the equivalent of 20 watts of power—enough to power a lightbulb. As far as its mass, the brain is delicate, with a consistency like soft butter. And despite the fact that the brain comprises merely 2% of the body’s weight, it consumes more than 20% of the body’s daily caloric intake of energy—more than any other organ in the human body. Perhaps the most astounding finding comes in the size of a single sand pebble: brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and one billion connections.
Making our workspace work better for our brain.
With attention meltdowns now epidemic in many organizations, nearly everyone is struggling to adapt, often without any real understanding of what attention is, how it works, or how to attain it and use it productively. Fortunately and just in time, the research of neuroscientists in more than 40,000 labs throughout the world is shedding new light on the processes of attention and, in so doing, they’re providing decipherable clues into how it can be supported in the workplace.
During the past year, researchers from Steelcase, a leading U.S. based office furniture designer and manufacturer, have been delving into the findings of neuroscientists and cognitive researchers, and have discovered deep insight into workers’ behaviors and the changing nature of work. The resulting convergence of findings has inspired new perspectives and new ideas for how office environments, when thoughtfully designed, can be a hardworking and effective tool to assist workers in managing their attention. And that has all kinds of competitive advantages: improved worker engagement and wellbeing, more creativity and innovation, and better business results overall.
