Continuous Partial Attention

Rob Bell:
Hello, and welcome to Sketchplanations The Podcast.

We talk about various phenomena and observations in the world, inspired by the collection of sketches at sketchplanation.com, to help fuel your own interesting chats with colleagues, family and friends.

And at this time of year, we're happier than ever to give you the fodder you need to diffuse tension around the Christmas dinner table.

I'm engineer and broadcaster Rob Bell, and with me is designer and creator of Sketchplanations, Jono Hey, and entrepreneur and past winner of The Apprentice, Tom Pellereau.

Hello, chaps.

Tom Pellereau:
Hello.

Rob Bell:
Now, this time, we're talking about Continuous Partial Attention, a blight on modern society that interrupts and distracts.

As ever, for the full explanation, let's head straight over to Jono.

Jono, do you want to talk us through your sketch and tell us a bit more about Continuous Partial Attention, please?

Jono Hey:
Do you know what, actually, the person who came up with the term Continuous Partial Attention is somebody called Linda Stone.

She was quite explicit several times in some of the things she talked about was that it wasn't good or bad.

It was just what it was.

Rob Bell:
Interesting.

Yeah, good.

I called it a blight there.

That's just through my own eyes, but good.

I think we will probably come back to this.

Tom Pellereau:
You find a lot of things blight.

I hate to.

I hate to say something.

A lot of the modern world is blighted, in your opinion.

Jono Hey:
Luddite, Rob.

Rob Bell:
I think we will probably come back to that, Jono.

That's a good point.

Notch that up.

Jono Hey:
Anyway, what is Continuous Partial Attention?

It's a term coined by Linda Stone.

She was an exec at Apple and Microsoft and a professor at NYU, what is quite a long time ago now.

Continuous Partial Attention is this idea, which she started seeing around that time, of people being connected always on, trying to do a bunch of things at the same time.

I think at the time, multitasking was quite a popular term.

People were realizing that you could, in fact, multitask now, and how much could you multitask?

Then she was seeing multitasking to the next level, where people were trying to do all sorts of things.

She had students in her classes who had, and those were the days that she was doing it.

She says they had pages and SMS coming in, and I think the BlackBerry came in soon after, and people were doing email and they had multiple windows open, plus they were in a lecture.

They're trying to do all these things, and it's just not very satisfied.

She coined this term, Continuous Partial Attention, which I think probably just hit the nail on the head at the time.

Obviously, I discovered it much, much later.

In fact, I didn't realize for a long time that she coined this term just in the mid-90s.

Rob Bell:
Wow.

Jono Hey:
So, it's an interesting one that it really resonated with me.

And I think a lot of other people from 2020 onwards, which is over 25 years or so later.

So, it's still relevant now and presumably is the next level.

But I guess we'll talk about that.

Rob Bell:
Well, do you want to talk about how you've represented it in the sketch as well?

Because I find that quite amusing and it does give an example of what this Continuous Partial Attention could be for an individual.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

And when you're reaching for inspiration, sometimes some of it's like autobiographical.

You can't help that.

And so, I went for a family scene.

And this is one of the few ones where I'd say it's almost a cartoon, which I wouldn't normally just do sketches and frameworks and all that stuff.

But there's basically, there's somebody at the stove and they're kind of on their phone and they're asking their spouse or partner, somebody who sat at the island, a question.

And they're on their phone and it's pinging and they're sort of not really hearing the question.

Meanwhile, somebody else in the house is like trying to talk to them saying they're about to leave to go for a yoga class and the kid's on the floor who's spilt paint and spreading it all over the place and their soup is boiling over on the stove.

So none of these things are happening very well, basically.

So that's the idea with the scene.

And there's a happy family on the wall.

Rob Bell:
And I think as soon as you give something like this a name, you can kind of recognise it in yourself, in others.

That was my experience when I saw your sketch and it's my experience when I was looking back at this again in prep for the podcast.

Jono Hey:
I've experienced it so many times where you're sort of half doing a bunch of stuff at the same time and as a result, you hear somebody talk to you, but you kind of missed some of the questions.

So you sort of like plunder your way through a response, but then you don't really finish what you're doing.

And then you're like, oh, excuse me.

Sorry.

What did you say?

I wasn't really paying attention anyway.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's just totally related to it, sadly.

And lots of things that work as well.

And if you think of video calls and stuff like that, we can get to, but I don't know about you guys, but unfortunately, the term, as soon as I read it hit the nail on the head, I was like, damn it, that's what's going on.

Rob Bell:
What I'm really interested to learn in your little explanation there, Jono, is that this was a term coined in the 90s, because I automatically relate this to the invention of the smartphone, right?

Which is just this thing always in your pocket.

And we need to be really careful here that we don't just replicate our discussion from a previous episode on thubbing, phone snubbing, right?

And the constant distraction of smartphones.

So, if I feel we're going that way with it, I'm going to call it out.

I mean, we need to move on, because if people want to hear about thubbing, there's a whole episode on that.

This is different.

Jono Hey:
This can just be a cost for you as well, not just for other people, right?

Like I said, thubbing is annoying if you're sat there and somebody else is paying attention to their phone.

And that can happen here.

Like if you're on a video call and you notice that people are doing other stuff while you're trying to talk to them, that's kind of annoying.

But also you can be in this kind of, and I think this is where she was picking up, you're kind of in this continuously slightly stressed state that things might be coming in or I have to check this, I have to check that.

And certainly at work in my last two companies, we used Slack, which is sort of instant messaging.

And very quickly, you have it on your phone as well, because that's really convenient sometimes to call people or just send a quick message while you're around at work or at lunch, but then you also have that at home and then people are working in different time zones and messages might be coming in any time and you realize that you're at home in the kitchen and then you're thinking that your phone's just got a message.

Maybe I could just quickly respond to that, but you're trying to do something else.

So yeah, like I think there's a cost to you personally, not was, for being was very much like you and others.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, gotcha.

Tommy, where do you sit on this?

Tom Pellereau:
I have always been a massive multi-tasker type person.

And I think historically when they kind of take all the things around you couldn't quite keep up, that worked pretty well, but it's been absolutely supersized by the amount of information that can now come in on on phones and laptops and iPads and all these things that are around you.

I think fundamentally there is one big important aspect that we probably have to all be aware of and that is that we can hear and we can concentrate on about 400 words per minute, but yet when people are talking they only tend to talk at about 150, 200.

So actually the very aspect of a conversation is actually relatively difficult for a human to concentrate on because they're just like, why can't you talk faster?

Like basically you can concentrate twice the speed that I can talk to you, Rob.

Jono Hey:
So right now we're going at the speed of your thought, your sentences rather than the speed at which I can process.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, we're not.

Tom Pellereau:
Exactly.

Rob Bell:
Jono, Tommy's thoughts are going much faster than he can communicate them.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, he's condensing and picking all sorts of things.

Tom Pellereau:
And often actually the slower we talk, the better we talk.

Yeah, which is one of the reasons that I'm sure we've done a podcast about that aspect.

So, but that does mean that kind of when you are having a one-to-one conversation, it is quite challenging actually to keep your brain focused there, come on, hurry up sort of scenario, which therefore I think often means that when we're having those conversations, we're kind of pulled to finding more information that we can be processing simultaneously.

So anyway, that's an interesting thing to be aware of, but certainly the modern day has been totally supersized and these days it is so easy to get distracted by the shiny object that you don't make the best of the moments.

Jono Hey:
I heard Linda talk about, I mentioned multitasking briefly.

So she said like typical multitasking is you doing one task that requires focus and one which is kind of automatic.

So you could stir the soup and talk to somebody or you can like eat lunch and have a conversation.

But the difference with Continuous Partial Attention was you're doing more than one activity that requires your cognition to do it properly.

And I guess what you're saying there, Tom, is actually we do have some spare cognition if you can sort of keep this going.

I remember, I think it was Oliver Berkman.

He said that he found that he could even, I think it was him.

Rob Bell:
Hello, quick interlude from Rob here.

Jono has since corrected himself that it wasn't Oliver Berkman.

In fact, it was Dan Kahneman.

Back to you, Jono.

Jono Hey:
Even be reading a bedtime story to his kid and finding himself, he's got spare capacity to think about other things at the same time, because these stories are quite short and simple.

So he's sitting there reading and he can be thinking about what he's going to do tomorrow or whatever.

And he's like, oh, no, I shouldn't do that.

Be present.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, be present.

Enjoy this beautiful time with my children.

The brain sort of drifting off into other parts.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
I have been very, very lucky because my sister started a company called Mind Over Tech.

And one of the aspects they're really focusing on is how to make the best of technologies without finding some of the negative aspects that can come with a kind of addictive side and the constant desire to be checking it, even though there probably isn't something there to be checked.

And I did quite a lot of training with her and some of those things have really helped.

And one of them at the beginning, the trainer was kind of like, okay, it's all right to just sit there and think nothing, do nothing occasionally.

I was like, wow, this is a mumbo jumbo rubbish, isn't it?

I mean, seriously, what does he mean by this?

He's like, you know, and maybe try it.

And straight after the session, I was in a bit of a hurry to go and get my kids.

And so I rushed out of the thing.

I got in the car, I drove away.

And then I was instantly like in the car and it was quiet.

And like, you can't look at your phone when you're driving, obviously.

And I went, oh, I must turn the radio on.

Hang on, why do I need to turn the radio on?

Why do I need to fill my brain with more stuff that's probably not irrelevant, or it's just going to kind of distract me or pull me out of this moment?

And I suddenly realized then, this is what he means.

You can just do one thing at a time.

You don't have to be blasting yourself with information constantly.

Rob Bell:
See now, when we talked about thubbing, I was quite happy to offer myself up with somebody who doesn't thub.

And I'm quite, I think I'm the same or similar with this.

I can't do more than one thing at a time.

And it frustrates a lot of people around me sometimes, because it does mean that it takes me longer to do stuff.

But I'm always quite happy with the outcome of what it is I've achieved at the end of focusing entirely on that thing and then moving on to the next.

So I find it frustrating when others do it.

And I'm around that.

But I'm getting too close to fubbing again here now.

Jono Hey:
Will Barron Yeah, well, maybe you've not been in times where at work, well, I've definitely been at times where there might be video calls, quite often video calls, because everybody's got a laptop open.

But you can even be in the same room with laptops open.

And it's so easy, I think, it's particularly the big of the meeting, it's so easy to just be like, I've got a bit of spare attention, just like you say, Tom, a message has just come in, I can just switch over to that.

And then you are sort of there, but in my mind, you're also kind of not.

And so for me, I'd much rather everybody closed everything else and was like, we might as well just be here, short and sweet, let's focus on this and then get out of here.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
But I don't think that's always the case.

And I actually think people probably have quite strong views that, is it fine to do stuff on a video call, like do other things if you're not the one who has to speak at the time.

And I think some people think that's totally fine.

And other people don't.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
So I don't know.

Maybe you've not had those occasions so much.

Rob Bell:
I'll tell you somewhere where I have experienced it recently is having a kid, having a young kid who you need to be keeping an eye out for.

So she's moving now.

So if you're having a chat with someone or you're trying to do something, but also it's your turn and you're trying to make sure that she's not going to, I don't know, pull something heavy off the shelf or that chair that she's got hold of, is that going to come down?

I do find myself doing that if it's not right.

I've got time with my daughter here now and we're going to spend time playing and mucking about.

If I'm trying to do other things, I find myself in continuous partial attention when I'm doing that.

Jono Hey:
You're a bit like one of those adults in the picture then, aren't you?

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I am.

And thank God in the picture, it's only paints and not something more dangerous.

Exactly.

Jono Hey:
It's got like a bottle of Windex or something.

Tom Pellereau:
So definitely with kids, there are so many occasions like that, which start when they're a baby and you've got to look after them and you're trying to have conversations or you're trying to do cooking or you're trying to do, it becomes much more of that because someone is so dependent on you.

One of the things that I get most frustrated about with modern life is the number of online forms or whatever you might have to do.

This weekend, we had early Christmas with my family and I was given an amazing drone.

Brilliant thing.

I was so excited.

Opened it up.

Right.

Okay.

Got to download the app.

Got to log in.

And I'm there with all my family for about 10 minutes, Jack going, come on Danny, let's play with this drone.

And of course, the password didn't work and it didn't log in and I'm doing that.

And meanwhile, he's been given a really cheap drone.

He's put batteries in and he's flying around with his drone.

And I'm there with my technically better one, totally unable to even get in.

And then I just go, go back, right.

I'll just, I'll do it another time because it's getting me too much.

Jono Hey:
That is really frustrating, isn't it?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
You're like, do I need an account right now?

Oh, why doesn't it pre-fill my details?

I can't suggest the password, it doesn't meet the requirements, it's not saved on the browser.

Tom Pellereau:
And I'm trying to only give it partial attention so I can be with the family, but actually it's demanding more of that.

Otherwise they're going to mess it up.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, you probably need to walk out of the room, focus on that and come back in.

So I think is actually what Linda was very much talking about, is about focus.

And it's funny thinking here in some of her examples, she said at the time, this is the 90s, or even before that, which was early days of Microsoft and Apple, computers used to be one thing at a time.

If you were working something, you had email was like a green screen with black text or whatever.

And so that's all you did.

So if you wanted to do two things, you had two screens because you could only do one thing at a time.

And of course, the whole premise of the Macintosh and Windows, the display where you can have five things up at once.

And it's kind of messed us up as well, right?

Because you can have five things up at once.

And of course, it's mega helpful in many cases.

But it also makes you start doing loads of different things.

And you can be doing one thing and something can ping in another.

It's so easy to get distracted just you staring at your laptop because five different things can come in.

You can have your WhatsApp open, you can have SMSes come in, you can have emails come in while you're trying to do some other thing.

Rob Bell:
You can, but you don't have to.

You can turn off your notifications.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rob Bell:
Says he who annoyingly doesn't get back to people anytime quickly because he's turned his notifications off.

But it means I can focus and I don't get distracted as much.

Hey, listen, I'm not putting myself up on a pedestal here.

I am a little bit.

Jono Hey:
I was going to say you are a little bit.

Tom Pellereau:
Is that why you chose this one?

Is that why you chose this one?

Rob Bell:
No, because listen, Tommy, at the beginning, and I want to come on to this now.

Tom Pellereau:
Tommy promises he will improve his...

Rob Bell:
No, no, no, no, no, no.

Tom Pellereau:
When we meet each other.

Rob Bell:
Jono said at the beginning that when Linda Stone coined this term, it wasn't a positive or a negative.

It was a thing, right?

So let's talk about some of the positives of continuous partial attention.

Tom Pellereau:
Sorry, I got a bit distracted there.

What do you think?

Rob Bell:
Anyone?

Tom Pellereau:
You can get a lot of things done.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, sure.

Tom Pellereau:
I think it depends a lot on what you do and what life circumstance you're in.

I reckon medics, probably it's hugely important that they have the ability to do lots of different things at a time.

Rob Bell:
You're right.

There must be some roles where actually continuous partial attention is demanded of you.

Tom Pellereau:
Constantly, yeah, probably being a childminder, but being in a nursery, being a teacher, you probably have to have an amazing ability to do multiple things at a time.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Do you know where I saw it most impressively was when I was on board HMS Vengeance, one of the UK's Trident submarines, and they were doing drills of when stuff goes wrong on the boat.

Then the heads, there are about six heads of different teams, came into this one room, really, really small room, you're on a submarine, and the guy in charge, the XO, he was there just getting information from everybody, making decisions, asking this, and there's stuff going on all around it.

It would have been so easy to get distracted.

He was focused, but maybe he was just focused on one role, which was resolving or one task, resolving this problem.

But it required lots of different things happening at one time.

It was really busy to be in there and to experience it and to watch this all happen.

But it felt incredibly well-controlled.

These guys are brilliantly trained.

But it didn't feel like multitasking.

It did feel like he was being put under the pressure to be in continuous partial attention, but was also really effective with it as well.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

I sometimes wonder if you're the person doing the cameras at a sporting event, and you're paying attention to all these cameras at once, and you're like, okay, right, switch to that, switch to this, play the replay, whatever.

You like that stuff is really impressive, I often think.

Incredible focus.

To me, that would be continuous partial attention.

I would really struggle to be able to do that.

Perhaps you can practice on it.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Some people are amazing.

When I do QVC, the presenters will have someone upstairs telling them about how things are going, and they will continue to be talking, and maybe the studio upstairs are also giving them the next question to ask me.

There was a time where I would have a headphone.

They'd be like, would you like a headphone as well, so you can listen.

I did it a couple of times, I was like, no, sorry.

I can't possibly, because if you start talking to me, I will just stop talking.

And that doesn't work quite as well about it.

So no, it's fine.

Jono Hey:
I think that really gets to this idea that there's too many things requiring cognition.

You have to process this and process that.

And in order to process this, the other one just stops.

Just stop speaking.

I see it, I mean, now I have it the other way around as a parent, but it used to be as a kid, I'd be like playing a video game and somebody asks you what you want for dinner or something, what you're having.

And you're like, uh, uh, yeah.

Yeah, dinner, thanks.

And you're like, no, I asked you what you wanted.

And, you know, like, I can't process it.

You're like, I just stop this.

What was the question?

And answer it.

And then go on.

But there's definitely been that one where I'm just carrying on and I can't, I can't process what you're saying as well when you probably die in the computer games as well.

Rob Bell:
See, we're coming back around to the negatives of it again, right?

So I'm seeing that there's a difference between what we're talking about there, like live broadcasting, right?

And having one task that involves lots of continuous partial attention across different bits of communication and things that are happening.

And the scenario, let's say in the office or in the scenario in the sketch, Jono, where it feels like it's this desire not to miss out on anything that means that you are dividing your attention between all these various different things, that desire not to miss out.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I thought about FOMO as well with this.

I have done the same way, you know, remove your notifications and get rid of the little red bubbles on the apps and stuff.

But then I also have this thing that because I don't have a notification, something might have come in, and it's sort of in my mind that maybe something's come in.

It's been a while since I've had a look, so maybe I'll just have a quick look.

Whereas actually, if I had a notification, I'd know that nothing had come in.

And so I do find occasionally I'm doing that.

I'm like, I've turned all my notifications off, so now I've got to go check.

And that's probably worse.

Tom Pellereau:
There's FOMO and there's also just the need sometimes in life or in work or many different things.

But you just have to try and get as much done as you possibly can.

So I do a lot of work with Asia.

They're currently eight hours ahead.

So from 6 a.m.

when I'm up, they are asking me questions.

And I know that if I don't get answers back to them within two or three hours, like I've missed another day because they'll stop soon.

It's exactly the same time as I'm getting up, having a shower, sorting out the kids, making them breakfast, trying to get out.

But if I didn't have that ability to partially attend to that as well as that, as well as answering the message to someone at the same time as pouring the milk for Poppy or Jack, you know, as well as sort of making the tea, my business life would be much, much less productive, unfortunately.

Yeah.

And the kids wouldn't get to eat anything.

The thing that always amazes me is how good virtually every mum in the world is at just unbelievable amounts of multitasking.

In the morning, they're kind of making sure that the kids have got the right shoes, because it's Squash Today, Poppy and Jacob.

You've got your gum shield, because you've got hockey tonight and all that sort of stuff.

And did you see that note from your teacher that you've got to have a one pound coin, because it's blah, blah, blah day?

And just like, wow, I'm concentrating on some things.

But Sarah constantly amazes me in her ability to organise the family.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I'd be pouring orange juice on the cornflakes or something by mistake.

Rob Bell:
Booking the kids on to a flight to China.

Jono Hey:
This isn't something you can just put the tickets on.

You have to go, Jack.

Sorry, it's not refundable.

That would be classic.

Like Tom said, as a leader in an organization, I think you got some different roles.

One of them is you got to be strategic, and sometimes you got to really focus on what you're doing.

Other times, you've got to be all about unblocking your team, or like Tom said, about like making sure that if somebody's got questions, they get an answer.

And so you can have questions as a leader coming in from all different sides, and quicker you can deal with each one of these things, all these people can carry on with their jobs, and they're not waiting on the bottleneck.

And so I think as a leader, you have a lot there that actually is maybe quite a good thing at times, but not if you also have to do focus work at the same time, or not pour orange juice on cornflakes.

Rob Bell:
What's the best way to be conscious of it when it is one self that might be guilty of continuous partial attention?

How can you avoid it?

Jono Hey:
Some of the things you try and do is you turn what is an activity that requires cognition into one that's kind of automatic.

I think people might get there with walking these days.

I know obviously we can all walk, but walking down a pavement, you might get to the point where if it's a long, straight pavement, and there aren't any cars around and I'm not crossing roads, I don't have to pay much attention to my walking anymore, which is I think where you get to this other sketch called a Phone Zombie.

But I have to say that I commute and I had a 20-minute walk, and one day it was a really long, quiet residential street, and I had a masterclass membership that year, which is videos.

Rob Bell:
On your phone.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

I watched it while I was on the train, and then I was walking down this long, straight road and I'm like, I think I could still watch it here.

Tom Pellereau:
Watch your walk.

Jono Hey:
It's very quiet, I'm just walking straight.

And then of course, you come up to a road and you have to put it down and actually go, oh, I nearly walked across there, that was really stupid.

But I think it's like taking those activities which did require cognition and you're like, bring it down to can I make it automatic enough that I could do something else?

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Jono Hey:
Do you ever see the video of the lady falling in the fountain?

Rob Bell:
No, was she Phone Zombie?

Jono Hey:
It's like a security camera footage from a mall.

That's great.

Walking around the mall when she falls straight in the fountain.

Rob Bell:
That's great.

Jono Hey:
As she's texting on her phone, gets out and walks off, soaking wet.

That's the danger.

But anyway, maybe we can make more stuff not require full attention, but on the other hand, maybe it's a slippery slope and we should just enjoy the walk.

Probably should just do that.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Well, you know, bring on single-tasking.

I'm a massive champion for single-tasking.

Jono Hey:
Absolutely.

Rob Bell:
You asked my wife.

Drives her mad.

But I get it done and it's done to as good a quality job that I could muster.

Tom Pellereau:
There's definitely times and places where multitasking is really useful, beneficial, and there's times and places where it's really, really not.

Single-tasking would help us all a lot in many circumstances.

Jono Hey:
In the sketch, there's somebody trying to talk to the other people in the room, saying they're leaving and they're off to yoga.

It's not an accident that they're yoga and I think Linda mentioned it as well.

Which is that because you have this constant low-level stress, I think like chronic alertness of technology, that things could reach you from anywhere or I should be checking this or whatever, she says is actually a push towards the opposite side, which is the whole detoxing and wellness and meditation and disconnects and going on a retreat and leading everything and yoga and things like that, because it's completely the opposite where you are mega in single tasking, as you say.

Rob Bell:
And hyper-focused on it as well.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, and actually, in a way, I think it's probably not coincidental that that's, I think, risen in the same time.

And there's another sketch, and she mentioned the same thing.

It's one of the things I was listening to, which is, the sketch is in the book, actually, which is that things tend to evolve with a thesis, and then antithesis, and then a synthesis, which is like, the thesis is, oh, we can be connected at any time and I can do all this stuff.

And then the antithesis is like, I hate that, I can't stand it, whatever.

And then the synthesis is all these solutions that have gradually come in over the years for us to help control these problems that we get from all the benefits we also get from our technology.

But I think, yeah, it's interesting that I think you get massively on, but people also want to now get massively off.

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Jono Hey:
And go to the yoga class and forget everything.

Rob Bell:
That is such a simile, metaphor of life generally, I think.

That's probably always been the case, right?

Because we're talking about technology now, but go back 100 years.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
You know, it would still be the same thing.

This technology comes and it brings us all these advantages.

And then, oh, God, it's gone too far.

We need to get away from it.

I'm sure that's always been the case.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
One of the most productive periods of my life was when I was in The Apprentice.

And during and in The Apprentice, you were not allowed your phone, your wallet, your keys.

You couldn't go home.

There was no access to email, no access to Internet, actually, at all.

And you only had one task to do for those days of the task.

And it was actually amazing how much I could achieve or as a group we achieved.

Helen and I created a whole brand for a fast food restaurant chain, MyPie.

It's probably one of my best ever pieces of work actually.

And we did that in a day, two days.

Helen nailed it on the food.

I was very lucky with the brand idea.

And it came together really nicely.

But we only were allowed to do one thing for the whole time in there.

And it was hugely, hugely productive.

Jono Hey:
This is going way back to back at university.

There was a period where we did a project for a whole semester.

And so you've had actually like decades almost, because all of your schooling has been a class of this, geography, then we moved to PE, then we do science, then we do this.

And you're switching all the time.

And then this was like the third or fourth year of university.

And then they're like, okay, you're just going to do this project.

And you got no lectures, no classes, whatever, just turn up at the end of the thing, show us your project.

And I remember like, wow, this is amazing.

You mean this is all we have to do today.

And then there was somebody who was a year above us, who'd done it the previous year.

And he said to me at the beginning, I remember, he's like, you know, make sure you make progress on it, but you've probably got to do like a few hours, good work on it a day, and that's fine.

And you'll get there.

And I was like, oh, only a few hours.

Because you know, we've been doing like eight hours of stuff, lectures and tutorials, and homeworks and whatever.

And he's like, oh, you only have to do a couple of hours of good work on it a day.

And I think he was right.

I think you only have to do a few hours of work on it a day.

And if you tell me, if you take that and you go, yeah, actually, I'm not going to do two hours.

I'm going to do the entire day, start to finish on this one thing.

Incredible the amount of progress you make.

We used to do our work, something I used to lead, but both the last companies have done something called a ship it day, which is like a literally 24 hours start to finish, and you've got to deliver something at the end.

And people said at the end of it, so the premise is you leave everything in your day job behind, which is often quite hard for people to do.

It's interesting how hard it is for people to do even for 24 hours.

And you team up with somebody, and you just do this for 24 hours.

And people are like, wow, this is amazing.

It's amazing how much we got done, and it's amazing how joyful this focus was on one thing.

And why don't we do this all the time?

It was a lot of the thoughts, because it's just incredible what you can get done if you are just focused on something.

So I can absolutely imagine in The Apprentice, when you've also got that pressure, and you want to do a good job, you get tons done.

Yeah, so maybe if we just focus a bit more.

Rob Bell:
Well, I'm really conscious that at the beginning, we said, we've said it a couple of times in the podcast, it's neither positive nor negative.

It's just a thing.

But it sounds like we've come down on it pretty hard.

It sounds like we've dismissed this as a negative trait of human behavior.

Where are the positives?

Tom Pellereau:
We've been through a few.

We've been getting lots done and sometimes you just have to.

Rob Bell:
It's not a really poor quality, but you've got it done.

Tom Pellereau:
And sometimes in life, you just have to get stuff done, right?

You don't get to choose the timing of things, you've just got to get through it.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Wise words.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Okay.

Jono Hey:
A nice quote came across the other day from David Bader and it just says, be here now, be someplace else later.

Is that so complicated?

And I think technology messes with that loads, doesn't it?

Because you can kind of be here and you can be answering stuff in China and you can be doing something in the office.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

I could be on this podcast doing some emails, checking something out or reading the news.

But we should be doing them, be here now.

Rob Bell:
Is there anything else pressing that anyone wants to bring up before we call it a day on continuous partial attention?

Tom Pellereau:
I think quite a lot of the subjects have come forward.

I'm fascinated to know how AI is going to affect this in the next 20 years.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
I'm hopeful that it's going to really help.

Jono Hey:
One of the things that came to mind is this is way back.

I remember if this was like Episode 2 or something, Yak Shaving.

Yeah.

Yak Shaving was like you're trying to do something and then you end up doing something else and you end up doing something else, you end up doing something else.

When you're doing that, very often you end up with like five or six slightly uncompleted tasks and you're doing this thing and you can't finish it right now and then somebody else do a question and you get back to that, but you were really trying to do that and there you're doing lots of different things.

AI is interesting because in a way, what is quite nice about AI is like if you do research, normally in the web is you end up with loads of tabs open and AI is quite different because you just have this conversation, this one point of contact and it streamlines a lot of your focus into just that conversation.

I don't know how it will play out, but it is quite interesting.

I feel it's quite nice.

There's that film, Her, where everybody's got the AI in their ear and they're always, everybody's just walking around talking to the AI and it's like, that's your one thing.

You don't have to open up a computer and do 10 different things and research all this stuff.

You just have this one channel and they've got all the answers.

So yeah, I don't know.

We'll see.

Maybe that's the synthesis after Thesis and Antithesis.

Yes.

Or maybe not.

We'll see.

Rob Bell:
Or maybe it's the, what's the first one?

Jono Hey:
Thesis, a new thesis.

Yeah, and then we're going to have the antithesis of it.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
That's nice.

Who said that?

It's a lovely quote.

Jono Hey:
Which one?

The Thesis Antithesis.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
It's sometimes known but erroneously as Hegel's Dialectic, but I think it's a sort of general framework of the progress of ideas.

It's quite interesting.

Actually, the example I used in that sketch was lots of notifications and then somebody chucking away their phone and then the solution being like airplane mode and do not disturb and stuff like that.

It has come about to solve the problems of it.

It's lovely.

Rob Bell:
It's lovely.

Well, there you go.

Any conclusions?

If you feel yourself in a state of continuous partial attention and you're feeling a bit stressed by it, maybe take on some of our suggestions, shut off your notifications, take a break, focus on one task at a time till it's finished.

Jono Hey:
All of these things.

I mean, I think I can do the wellness retreat.

Rob Bell:
Go do a wellness retreat.

Jono Hey:
Definitely in the picture is not the happy scenario.

They would have put their phones down when they walked in the door.

Somebody's really focused on making a delicious dinner and they all sat around the table eating and one of them is playing with the baby.

That should be my antithesis picture next to it.

Rob Bell:
Love it.

Well, listen, I've found that useful, guys.

And again, I think what's most useful for me is now I'm aware of this as a thing and Continuous Partial Attention is kind of part of my vernacular.

It's kind of part of my toolbox of traits of us humans and I can recognize it in myself.

I can recognize it in others and hopefully I can just say it's a thing people do.

Jono Hey:
You're just going to recognize it in others.

You don't do it, do you?

From up on your pedestal.

Tom Pellereau:
It's a problem that other people have.

Rob Bell:
No, it pisses me off when other people do it.

Jono Hey:
Next week, another problem other people have.

Rob Bell:
If you've enjoyed this episode, please tell your family and friends about it and have a listen to some of the other topics that we've covered.

In fact, similar topics to this episode, I might suggest fubbing, 5 Ways to Wellbeing, Everyone's a Geek About Something, anything else?

It springs to mind, guys.

Jono Hey:
How to Instantly Feel Better.

Rob Bell:
Greer is another great one.

And because of the time of year, I'd also highly recommend giving our episode on Picking the Perfect Present a listen as well.

I'll link to that in the show notes below.

And I would highly recommend if you haven't got the perfect present yet, getting on to...

Jono, where's the best place to buy your book?

Jono Hey:
You can go to the Sketchplanations website and it's got a bunch of links so you can buy it.

Waterstones, your local book shop.

If you're listening to different parts of the world, it will link you to your local Amazon.

Rob Bell:
That's handy.

That's clever.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, all sorts.

Rob Bell:
Big Ideas, Little Pictures by Jono Hey, Sketchplanations.

How many sketches you got in there, Jono?

Jono Hey:
That's a good question, like 130 something.

Rob Bell:
I asked you that when it was coming out a while back and you still haven't counted them.

Jono Hey:
Well, I did know it very well.

If you'll excuse me for one second doing some partial attention, I can look up and tell you it's a lot.

Rob Bell:
Tommy, what do you love about Jono's book?

Tom Pellereau:
It is such a beautiful book.

It is a really fantastic gift to give to such an incredible range of people.

To a father-in-law, for example, is a perfect one.

Rob Bell:
Have you given it to your father-in-law, Tommy?

Tom Pellereau:
I think so, yeah.

Jono is so incredibly talented with his sketches and how it looks, but also very insightful and interesting things to learn about, to know about.

And I talk about it to the kids regularly as well.

Rob Bell:
There you go.

What more reasons could you have to buy this wonderful book for your loved ones this Christmas apart from knowing how many sketches are in it, Jono?

Jono Hey:
137.

Rob Bell:
There's 137 sketches in this and some of them are exclusive to the book as well.

I think we've only done one podcast on a book exclusive sketch previously.

Jono Hey:
That's true.

The Awkwardness Vortex.

Rob Bell:
The Awkwardness Vortex.

Jono Hey:
It's a fun one.

Rob Bell:
There you go, guys.

That's our tip for picking the perfect present this Christmas.

Right.

Well, guys, for the obvious closeout for this episode, it would be me kind of slowly fading my sentence away as if my attention had been drawn.

As if my attention had been drawn elsewhere.

Jono Hey:
Sorry, are we still on?

Rob Bell:
That's probably a bit cliched.

So I'm not going to do that.

I'll simply say thanks for listening.

Jono Hey:
Go well.

Rob Bell:
Stay well.

Goodbye.

Jono Hey:
Cheers, everyone.

Bye-bye.

Rob Bell:
All music on this podcast series is provided by the very talented Franc Cinelli.

And you can find many more tracks at franccinelli.com.