Noise

Chapter 11Awareness Management 101

Managing awareness is a personal responsibility.

“Keep your head in the game,” as the expression goes, needs to be something we do intentionally. After all, as our thoughts start wandering off, it’s really our minds that are adrift.

It’s easy for people to have hours—and perhaps days—go by as if they’re not mentally there at all. For example, you’re driving to work and you can’t remember a single turn or traffic pattern; you just sat in an hour-long meeting but what happened is a total blur; you’re involved in a conversation, but you find you’re not listening at all but wondering if your favorite team is playing tonight; after swiping your smartphone for hours at a time, you have practically no recollection of what you’ve read, viewed, or played.

Awareness can be a seemingly easy concept to grasp but a tough term to define. Because it is often used synonymously with terms like focus, knowledge, mindfulness, alertness, enlightenment, perception, consciousness, and understanding, it can be easily diluted and misunderstood.

Lighting the Path Before Us

As discussed earlier, your attention is a precious and scarce commodity that can be easily depleted.

According to Templafy, a technology provider, the average office worker receives 121 e-mails per day and sends 40 business e-mails a day.¹ These continual interruptions drain our brain. Think of it as a mental fuel tank that can go empty. If your mind is all over the place, it’s similar to driving ...