Tools for Thought

Anyone who’s been reading Tools for Thought on a regular basis has certainly picked up on the theme that managing attention and focus matters far more to me than managing time. While at the library a couple of days ago I allowed my attention to wander to a shelf with Sam Horn’s ConZentrate. So I picked it up and read it over the weekend. Let’s find out if this book has a high enough concentration of material to be fit for your attention.

ConZentrate is organized into 12 parts, with 34 chapters, or “Ways,” between them.

The introduction lays out the agenda that would be expected from the title. The title’s play on words is a microcosm of one of the book’s writing style, full of wordplays, pop references, jokes and quotations that I found wearisome: “Lord Byron once said, ‘The Head is the dome of thought, the palace of the soul.’ We’ve all heard that Dome [sic] wasn’t built in a day, and neither is the ability to ConZentrate.”

Part 1: Want to Get a Head? This part defines the scope of ConZentration (the word replaces “concentration” throughout the book, a practice I’ll avoid here): single-mindedness, interest in action, perseverance, and management of what Horn calls T.I.M.E. (Thoughts, Interest, Moments, Emotions). It also discusses the blocks to achieving concentration, such as lack of privacy, lack of patience, lack of energy, and so on.

Part 2: Train Your Brain. This section offers a five-minute exercise for clearing your mind by finding a private place, repeating an affirmation, and saying “No!” to any thoughts that intrude during the drill. Horn then recommends limiting your field of vision to the subject matter at hand by using your hand as a blinder. More tips are offered for stopping the onset of unwanted thoughts.

Part 3: Focus When You Don’t Feel Like It. Horn advocates an “Act Now, Feel Later” approach to initiative, setting realistic goal lines, establishing if-then rewards for accomplishing tasks, and focusing on objectives over objections. One good high-level focus tip, “Remember Mortality,” is reminding ourselves the price we pay in the scheme of things for making the easy choice, using a focus question like, “What will matter a year from now?”

Further focus questions are employed in the chapter on procrastination. When you’re about to put something off, ask, “Do I have to do this? Do I want to have this finished? Will this be any easier later?”

Part 4: Mind Your Own Business. This deals with crafting an environment conducive to focused work: eliminating disruptive sounds, improving posture, making thing accessible, decluttering, and increasing light levels. Horn recommends some triage best practices, like the 80/20 rule and short, prioritized lists.

There are a couple of good chapters devoted to eliminating interruptions, ranging from conversational tips for controlling motormouths to positioning desks out of a hallway’s line of sight.

Part 5: ConZonetration. These chapters lean heavily of sports analogies and anecdotes to recommend ways of getting and staying “in the zone.” Most of the material here covers the use of strategic visualization to enhance performance. This is one of the book’s strongest chapters, since it seems to draw heavily from personal experience with her two sons’ athletic travails.

Part 6: Make Your Home Your Castle (Not Your Hassle). Many homes are the dumping grounds for frustrations accumulated at work or school. Horn outlines strategies for creating sanctuary instead. No-phone dinner times, more decluttering, mood-setting music, family rules, and so on.

Part 7: Now and Zen. These chapters offer advice for staying in, or getting back to, the here-and-now, such as eye directing techniques and a couple of non-mystical forms of meditation. The breathing meditation exercises are particularly good.

Part 8: Does It All A.D.D. Up? This part emphasizes the need for those with acute attention deficits to set up additional systems, attitudes and distraction filters to stay on task, since willpower far less effective among those who honestly have A.D.D.

The second chapter is less about clinical attention deficits then social ones. The author gives advice for effective listening without interruption, and preparing appropriate replies to awkward questions that are anticipated in future conversations.

Part 9: Head Master. Here we have study tips for academic and continuous learning. While it’s hard to present original material in the realm of study tips, this is not a bad section. Horn recommends scheduling topics in order of difficulty to direct your peak mental reserves for the material that’s hardest to learn. Also discussed are break schedules, notetaking, memory techniques and increasing motivation.

Part 10: Good Thinking. A guide to making decisions and solving problems. “Define the problem” is the boilerplate that kicks off virtually every formal problem solving technique invented, but almost universally ignored in the real world, so it’s good to see the reminder here. Exploring options, getting feedback from others, increasing objectivity are among the topics discussed.

A chapter is devoted to mental fitness, which includes recommended activities like positive self-talk and doing crossword puzzles, but also discusses the link between mental and physical fitness, with tips for diet, exercise and rest.

Part 11: It’s All in Your Head. This section centers on emotional self-management. Some of the tips are as simple as getting out of the house or spending time with a pet, while others are damn-the-torpedoes attitude adjustments (”Resolve to Do, Not Stew”). This was the least useful part of the book for me, but it was clearly designed to end the book on an inspirational note.

Is the book ConZentrated enough?

Like Brian Tracy, Sam Horn anthologizes more than she synthesizes. Each page has at least two or three quotes, meaning at least 700 quotes throughout the book. But also like Tracy, the sheer volume of tips makes it very likely that you’ll run across relevant reminders of advice you’ve encountered before. In hindsight, I would have preferred to skim through the book rather than read it in whole, and I’d recommend you do the same.