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“Every single moment of your life could be a moment that you will remember for the rest of your life. Every single moment could be the moment that will change your life forever. We usually can’t see those moments coming.”
― Maura Nevel Thomas

RescueTime talks with Maura Thomas about managing attention in a world designed to keep you distracted. Her insights into distraction, communication, and the modern workplace shed a new light on the concept of productivity.

Time management isn't the problem anymore

Maura Thomas’s first job out of college was working for a company that sold planners. As she describes it, “I’ve been in the productivity space for my whole career.”

But as technology changed the way we worked, Maura started to question if traditional time management was still the right framework. Once the iPhone became mainstream and constant connectivity became part of everyday life, she started seeing a different problem emerge. People didn't need more hours or better calendars. They needed a better way to protect where their attention went.

Now, this TEDx speaker and author of Attention Management and Everyone Wants to Work Here teaches others that the path to productivity isn’t so much about managing your time as it is about managing your attention.

“Our biggest challenge is not that we don't have enough time. If you've ever had a day where you thought to yourself, 'that was such a good day, I got so much done,' then, in theory, we all have the time that we need to have productive days. It's not really that time is the obstacle. I think now the obstacle is that we have too many distractions.”

Maura's suggestions for managing distractions →

Treat communication as part of your infrastructure

For businesses, minimizing distractions often requires looking at your processes as a whole. One key place leaders can start is by looking at how information moves through their organization.

“Communication is really the assembly line of knowledge work,” Maura asserts. She compares our current age of knowledge work to the industrial age. “Assembly lines and the accompanying processes were engineered to be as specific and efficient as possible. Great attention was paid to: How do we design this machine? How do the people work the machines to drive the greatest amount of efficiency and therefore profit?”

Knowledge work produces different things: ideas, analysis, solutions, creativity, and innovation. Maura suggests that the systems supporting that work deserve the same level of attention.

Instead, workplace communication is often left largely up to personal preference. “Everybody tells everybody whatever they think they need to know in whatever format they prefer,” she says, whether that's chat, text, a CRM, a voicemail, or an in-person meeting. “It is completely chaotic.”

Changes that can reshape workplace communication →