‘Everyday’ Intelligince: Pay Attention to Detail

Link to podcast:

< http://www.mixcloud.com/antonipeychev/everyday-intelligince-pay-attention-to-detail/ >

When was the last time you filled in a job application form without having to come up with an example of a situation in which you have demonstrated an outstanding attention to detail?

Never, that’s when!

Most employers nowadays are only looking for people who are able to stay focused and pay attention to detail. From a purely logical point of view, such a requirement does make sense as we live in a day and age in which there is so much information to process that, if not careful and focused, you can easily get lost and start crying.

Not many employers tolerate pointless crying at work; it makes them cringe.

But let us try and stay focused for a bit, hard as it may be. It is a fact that most people DO want to pay attention to detail; there are but a few who are happy with letting their mind wander.

What gets in our way most often, however, is our ever- decreasing attention span.

Students, for instance, have an attention span of 10 minutes, see << http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8449307.stm >>. This, of course, is quite worrying because most lectures take between 40 and 60 minutes.

An even more worrying study shows that social media has brought down our average attention span from 12 to 5 minutes, see

<< http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8449307.stm >>.

Indeed, it is quite disturbing that, since I’ve started writing this article, I have forgotten about half of the things that I am supposed to do in my lunch break today.

Paying attention to detail becomes even harder when we need to multi- task (and, let’s face it: we all have to do that at work). Coupled with a low attention span, multi- tasking can be quite lethal as, more often than not, you get muddled up and cannot decide what it is that you need to pay attention to.

Well, if it’s taken you less than five minutes to read this, you will remember that what you need to pay attention to is the DETAIL in everything you do because if you don’t do so, two things are bound to happen:

1. You look rather silly

2. You annoy those around you as they feel that you don’t care about what you’re doing and you just want it done

Let me illustrate the devastating outcome of the above through an example.

I once went out to grab a cup of coffee with a good friend of mine. As we were catching up, she told me that she had an interview with Skandia UK and she was very excited because she really liked the company and thought that she would enjoy working there.

As the old me was one who pretended to know it all, I raised my eyebrows at her and asked her whether she knew that she had applied to a company that deals with the manufacture of trucks and general logistics.

At that point, my friend smiled at me and changed the subject; of course, she only did that out of sheer politeness.

If you still haven’t yet realised what the epic failure in the above scenario is, I would gladly like point it out to you:

My friend had an interview with SKANDIA, the investment platform and NOT with SCANIA, the truck manufacturer.

Because I didn’t pay attention at the time (and because I was suffering from the know- it- all disease), I made a complete fool out of myself in suggesting that my friend had applied for a company that she knew little about.

Paying attention to details is not as difficult as you think it is; all you need to do is keep yourself as busy as you can. The busier you are, the more focused and organised you become. Not only that, but if you get a couple of things wrong, you tend to get pretty angry with yourself for doing so and, as a result, become more cautious about what you are doing.

To conclude, paying attention to detail is of utmost importance as it will not only help you land your dream job, but it will also aid you in your everyday social interaction.

Also, if you didn’t notice that I intentionally misspelt ‘Intelligence’ in the heading, you hadn’t been paying attention to detail.