Karen:
Today's guest is someone whose work has truly changed my life. Maura
Nevel Thomas has helped me work with more clarity, less stress, and far more
intention. Her ideas didn't just help me get more done, they helped me feel
calmer, more focused, and more in control of my days. What I love about Maura's
work is how practical it is. It doesn't ask you to hustle harder or do more. It
helps you focus on what actually matters. Maura, I am so grateful you're here.

Maura:
I am so grateful for that introduction. Thank you, Karen.

Karen:
I'd love to start with how you got into this — and maybe a quick
explanation of why attention management, and how you got into this space.

Maura:
My first job right out of college was for a company that sold
planners and training. It was one of the best on the market, a Danish-based
company. I spent about 10 years there, then started my own business helping
people manage their time and be more productive.

It was shortly after the iPhone
came out that I realized this framework of managing time as a path to improving
productivity — which the dictionary defines as achieving more of what's most
important, significant results — was not helpful as a frame. The words
themselves were holding us back. Once the internet came about, and especially
internet-connected smartphones, you could be physically present at something
but not mentally present at something. That was possible before phones, but it
wasn't as constant.

What I'm finding is that for
most people, doing only one thing is boring. And sometimes doing only two
things is boring. How often do you find yourself listening to a podcast while
you're talking on the phone and doing the dishes? We feel like we have to stuff
as much as possible into a space, otherwise we're not being productive.

Also, not having enough time
has never really been our problem. If you have a day where you say, oh my gosh,
I was busy all day and I got nothing done — and then another day where you say,
wow, that was such a good day, I got so much done — in both of those days you
had 24 hours. We have all the time we need to have productive days. It's how we
allocate our attention during that time that is the difference.

Karen:
Isn't there science backing this — that we don't really multitask,
we switch?

Maura:
What we're really doing is splitting our attention, because you
can't do two cognitive activities at the same time. This is something a lot of
people catch themselves doing: you're at your desk, the phone rings, you answer
it but you're still facing your computer, and there's email coming in, and you
find yourself reading it by accident while you're on the phone. You know that
moment when you're talking to someone and you go, are you there? And you can
almost see them in your mind going, sorry, sorry — and they turn away from
their computer, because they have to. We can't do two cognitive things at once.
So we switch what we're doing, and when we switch, everything we do takes
longer and we do it poorly.

Maura:
To me, the definition of productive is bigger than just the tasks on
your list. If you define productivity as achieving significant results, then
sure, a significant result is the thing on your to-do list today — but it could
also be being present with your family. It could be being the kind of person
you want to be out in the world. We're all so mesmerized by our devices now
that we're losing who we are, because we have these people we want to be and
the people we think we are — but if you're not behaving that way out in the
world, are you really that person?

Maura:
Part of the problem is that the more distracted we are, the more
distracted we get. And the more comfortable we get being distracted and not
fully present. The biggest problem now is almost not that we are so distracted
— it's becoming how comfortable we are being distracted.

People say things to me like,
oh, my phone just buzzes all day and I just ignore it. Except you don't really
ignore it. Even when you do ignore it, you still register the distraction. Then
some part of your brain is going, I wonder what that was and who wants it, and
I'm not going to get it right now, but maybe I should. It sends you down a
whole rabbit trail where now you're not present for whatever else you were
doing.

Part of the reason I coined
attention management in this way is because it's not just about focus. It's
about what headspace are you in, and are you doing all the brain activities
that make you fully immersed in whatever you're doing? So that you're marshalling
not just your knowledge and wisdom and skills, but also your humor and your
empathy and your diplomacy — all the things we work on as grown-ups and kind
people. We get all these skills, and then we don't express them because we give
ourselves only fractured attention. We're fracturing our personality and our
skill set and our talents.

Maura:
There is a lot of research about the chemical brain spikes, but I
think it's becoming this perfect storm where we get so used to it that it feels
comfortable. It feels right. It feels like this is how it's supposed to be. And
so when it isn't that way, it feels wrong — when in fact it's so much more
right.

Karen:
Do you have personal practices for how you stay present for your
family?

Maura:
One of the things my husband and I try to do — and we don't always
succeed — is we've declared at least our intention to have a single-tasking
household, a single-tasking relationship. When we're together, whatever we're
doing, if we decide to do a thing together, that's the only thing we're doing.
If we're playing a game, the phone goes away. If we're making dinner, the
laptops go.

Or you're sitting on the couch
watching TV and all of a sudden one person is laughing and the other one isn't,
because they weren't watching, they were on their device. I like to talk about
how shared experience requires shared presence. Sometimes we're walking the dog
and it's, is it going to rain tomorrow? It's so funny how an innocent question
that used to be a conversation starter is now almost considered an invitation
to take out your phone.

Technology has even killed —
remember when you used to sit around at dinner or at a bar with your friends
and debate things? That was the fun. Now there is no debate. Now it's, well,
let's find out who's right, and then the conversation's over. Okay, what do you
want to talk about now? It changes the entire way people relate to each other
when we allow phones to be part of it.

Maura:
The general principles of habit change apply: the more we make it
easier to engage in the behaviors we want, and the more we set up our
environment so it cultivates the behavior we want, the easier it is to do. Even
if you think about before the internet — everybody's living room is organized
around the television. Everything faces the television. A lot of homes have the
family room organized around the TV and then the sitting area, and I don't know
about you, but none of my friends use their sitting area. The furniture over
there isn't even comfortable. We've designed even our homes in many ways to
take the emphasis off communication and relationships.

Maura:
Our attention has become the most valuable commodity on the planet.
Attention is the most valuable resource on the planet by a lot — it's not even
close. Similar to the industrial revolution, when units of labor were
monetized, now we live in the attention economy where units of attention have
been monetized. The profits of attention merchants are based on how much of our
attention they can have. So they want it all.

That's why I think wearables
like glasses haven't quite caught on yet, but I believe they'll never give up
on that, because it's such an easy path to controlling more of our attention
more often. And then there's all the propaganda around it — oh, isn't this
convenient? It's the next iteration of: if you tell us everything about
yourself, that will make your life more convenient, because you'll get
advertising you actually want. They feed us propaganda that makes us go, oh,
that makes sense, okay. And so we give up more and more.

But it's not because we're weak
and it's not because we're stupid. It is literal psychological warfare. What's
being studied now is not programming — it is cognitive psychology and
behavioral analysis and brain hacking, to use against us for profit. There are
trillions of dollars being spent making us feel this way. This is not a lack of
willpower.

Karen:
How do we maintain and keep control of our own attention? What can
we do to fight back?

Maura:
Don't underestimate the importance of changing the words, because
words have power. So many people tell me — and I think you've said it too —
that the shift to thinking about attention management over time management
matters. Once you start thinking in terms of attention, you become more aware
of distraction. Once you're more aware of distraction, you start recognizing
when you are distracted. And you can't change what you're not aware of. So
changing your language, what you think in your head and what you say to other
people, is really important, because then everybody starts to recognize how
distracted they are.

Karen:
One of the biggest gifts I'm now able to give as a leader, based on
your work, is simply that when I go to meetings I don't have my phone up or
making noise. I try to wear a plain old watch if I need to keep track of time.
I feel like I'm able to give the people who report to me my full attention — no
computer, no email, no multitasking.

Maura:
The same advice for individuals goes for organizations. On our
personal devices, we don't need notifications for email, we don't need the
notification that somebody liked your post on LinkedIn, we don't need the
notification that it's going to be cold tomorrow. If we want to know the
weather, it's easy enough to find out.

But also, so many organizations
and leaders roll out their technology without thinking. Take Teams —
everybody's on every channel, on every thread, and all the notifications on
every thread and channel are turned on. So anytime anybody posts anything, everybody
in the company gets a ping. And then leaders talk about being responsive, but
without any definition around that. If you just say I need you to be
responsive, that tells me I have to be fast with my responses — and if I have
to be fast, I have to monitor all of my communication all the time. It's super
overwhelming.

Maura:
I think about communication as the assembly line of the 21st
century. In the industrial age, think about how much effort was put into
optimizing the assembly line so we could get as much production as possible.
But the way work gets done in the 21st century is communication — and yet we
give it no thought. We consider communication an individual, personal thing.
You would never say in the industrial age, everybody just head out onto the
factory floor and jump on a machine, I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Organizations keep introducing
new ways to communicate, but never offer any guidelines about what each one is
for. If we have email, how is Teams chat going to be different? What about the
group sales inbox, or the notifications from Salesforce? Which tool do I use in
which situation? Most organizations give absolutely zero thought to how
communication flows through their organization — and yet it is the biggest
source of distraction and inefficiency inside organizations.

Karen:
What's lifting you right now? What do you see in the future that's
positive, where we might make progress on this?

Maura:
There are pockets of backlash against this. I've recently learned
about communities of kids who have voluntarily gone back to flip phones. I
think even the rise of group texting is a bit of a backlash against social
media and algorithms — I just want to talk to the people I want to talk to, so
I'll create my own little text thread, because I don't want to put this on
Instagram. As I understand it, it's been coined the tech lash.

I'm hopeful that the ability to
control our devices is going to be more prevalent as technology evolves. Focus
mode on the iPhone is a great example — everybody said, I can't shut it off,
what if my kids are trying to reach me, what if there's an emergency? And the
answer was do not disturb, with your settings: do not disturb for this, but
only for this. The problem is they're not exactly enthusiastic about teaching
us how to use it, or letting us know it's there.

I also think that in this age
of AI, and questions about how AI is going to change our jobs and our lives,
there's a lot more emphasis on human connection. A lot of people are talking
about that, and I think that can only be good for us as a society — because I
really felt like we were entering this world of scroll zombies.

Maura:
Engaging your community, whether it's your family or your friends,
and really talking about — hey, let's just be present, let's put our phones
away, let's have these rules for when we're together, whatever they are — helps
a lot. Because doing it by yourself is hard.

Karen:
I talk about your books all the time to anybody who will listen. It
has been a game changer for me in my life and in my work. Your ideas don't just
help people get more done — you're helping people live and lead richer lives,
being present, and you're lifting people everywhere by helping them focus on
what truly matters.

Maura:
It means truly more than I can express to hear you say that. Thank
you very much.