Observation

[Dave S]

Read And Modify (original meaning when referring to computer memory)

So that's why my wife only hears what she thought I said...LOL

[Dave A]

So that's why my wife only hears what she thought I said...LOL

I think most of us are guilty of that one on occassions.

[Blurock]

I do think memory depends on what you are focusing on at the time. People are like sheep and will do what they are told to do, like noting how many times the ball gets passed. We focus on this because we are told to and we want to get it right. If we were told to focus on something strange occurring, we would immediately have spotted the man in the yeti suit. Very few people have the ability or curiosity to look beyond the obvious, because we are too focused on the task we're busy with.

When you practice or do something over and over, it becomes second nature, like the rhythm of a drum or the ripples on a dam. You get into that rhythm and everything happens automatically, you do not have to think about it and you do not have to use memory to do it. It becomes instinct.

Funny (and embarrassing) thing happened to me the other day. I parked my car and collected my diary and stuff from the passenger seat. With my hands full, I realised that I did not have my car keys. It was not in the ignition (I always instinctively pull it out as soon as I reach my destination) and I could not find it anywhere in the car. I then got out of the car and looked again. Not in my pockets, not in the car or under the car!

I eventually had to call my wife to help me. We had a good laugh when she found the keys in the sunglasses holder where I instinctively put it with my sunglasses (without thinking). Because I was not thinking or focusing on the action, I could not remember putting my keys with my sunglasses. I thought I was losing my mind!

[Dave S]

I could not remember putting my keys with my sunglasses. I thought I was losing my mind!

I think we've all been there, I blame it on the "age" thing... even though I know I'm BS-ing myself. The amount of times I've closed the driveway gate, only to drive round the block to make sure...

[vieome]

What is actually interesting, is how we have moved the topic of the thread from talking about the brain and attention(observation) to a thread on memory another aspect of the brain. Psychologist Richard Wiseman has covered attention in depth, with some great videos showing the concept. Attention is directly related to focus but from my guess it is also related to memory, judging by the memory stories here, had we all had being made to count the basketball passes we would of spotted the Yeti as we would of forgot that the actually task was to count the balls, and our attention being on something else.

On memory every be standing at the fridge door and not sure if you wanted to put something in or take something out. Of late I find spending time with the kids playing memory games(anything to keep them off their cellphones) helps some what. As the say the brain is like a muscle and it needs it exercise to keep its different functions going. Memory games for memory. Meditation for attention and focus. etc

[Blurock]

I regard focus as very important and essential for a successful task or business venture. To me there is no such thing as multitasking. If you are doing many things at the same time, you are just dividing your attention between the different tasks, but not focusing on one. Learn to focus on the important stuff and delegate the rest. We can not do it all by ourselves.

In business you have to determine your core function and goal and focus on it. All the other stuff are detractors.

[adrianh]

@blurock - my brother has been trying to get that into my head for a very very long time. I find that because I can do things that I do do them. When a staff memer messes something up I would jump in and fix it. Of course losing whatever I was focusing on at the time.

I suppose the focus issue for my goes to this question; how do you stop yourself from working in the business when you should be working on the business when your natural state is to be working in the business.

On multiprocessing - doing this has proved to be disasterous for me and my business processes. We should be working fifo. What happens with my multiprocessing is that the processes that are being worked on are not alwayswhat should be done but rather the ones that are nice to do. When one of those nice to do processes stalls,for some or other reason it is put on hold, replaced with another andeventually turned into a disaster.

[adrianh]

Attention - focus and memory.

Attention
I think that our own lifestyles couse us to develop ADHD. Think about, you are at home taliking yo the wife, the kid's radio is playing in her room and the tv is on. The program that you are watching on tv is interrupted every 5 minutes with 3 ads that are each 3 minutes long. The ads have noting to do with one another or the progam. Or you are driving to work and you keep an eye on the traffic while you listen to the radio and you see billboards flashing by. Your attentions shifts fromyour own thoughts to your surroundings to the billboards and the radio all the time. You are in the office working on the spreadsheet but you also keep an eye on the email, facebook and twitter and you also have a radar scanning for telephone calls, cell phone calls and bbms......yet we wonder why we have difficulty in competing tasks or remembering what we do.

Focus
I could never comprehend how companies could put creative people in open plan offices with phones going and constant interruptions. It drove me absolutely nuts. I would be working on a program and be interrupted 50 times an hour with calls, with people asking questions or others messing about in the office. Companies expect people to concentrate snd focus on the task at hand (which is great when you are in you own flow) yet they would put those vey same people in environments where it is near impossible to do so. Now that I work for myself I simply turn the cell phone off and take the phone off hook.

Memory
The bane of my life - how do people remember anything important. Sure I can remember lots of odd and interesting facts but I cannot remember so so many things. I've been told many times to use lists, which I do, but how do you remember to look at item 8 in sublist 6 of list 5. The question is this: how do you flag numerous issues for top of the head awareness? Also, how do you maintain all the lists in lists especially when things link up with one another....maybe the answer lies in mind mapping software?

[tec0]

Well you used to get Non-volatile static random access memory that was a bit slower but hell it was robust "no sudden memory dumps" and the page file could be recovered even if the power goes out. It was a wonderful design and could operate on very low power and very slow clock speed. It also made less mistakes thus the "cashless" CPU's could do supper stable crunching. The banks especially loved the robustness and clock-ability. but most CPU's have up to a 9mb cash but yet again the biggest leap came with the old 8087 AKA floating-point coprocessor man that thing was Alien tech... The stability was just there... It was like magic. A lot of people will say it was crash happy... that was never really true you see the main CPU would disregard the instruction cycle if the 8087 refused to accept it. BUT there where some flaws. The coolest bit however was its robustness... most CPU's do day cannot handle heat. The 8087 could handle more then 68 degrees Celsius and more! So much more that the board started to make bubbles...

[Blurock]

adrian, are you eating that frog or leaving it for later?

You seem to enjoy what you are doing because you are a creative spirit and for you, working is like playing. There comes a time in the growth stage of a business that you have to employ more people and delegate tasks that you enjoy doing yourself. Alternatively, you need to employ someone to manage you, so that you can keep on doing what you enjoy doing.

The dilemma for us entrepreneurs is that we do not take orders and we don't want to be told when to work and how to run our business. I'm sorry, but I do not have a solution for that one.

[pmbguy]

employ someone to manage you, so that you can keep on doing what you enjoy doing.

Adrian. Get yourself a young ambitious Personal Assistant, perhaps a newly graduated university student wishing to gain some experience in your particular field. The salary of the PA will be moderate and would be offset by your greater personal efficiency...
She/he can run around after you all day with a diary in one hand, a tablet in the other and on the phone with her 3rd even a backpack with beer in it. Your actual general day to day workload would be halved.
If things not busy and dont really need the assistant, then she can do general work within the business for that hour or day or whatever.
Your PA can be your eyes, ears, memory, focus and attention
You will have much more time to dedicate your energy and focus on what is most important to you in the business.
I don’t have a PA, but if I had one I would be involved in the interviewing process.

[adrianh]

@pmbguy - I have been thinking along those lines for years. Having a PA would solve a large number of the problems that I experience.

The thing is that I am ADHD, hyper driven, hyper scatter brained and hyper creative. So I have lots of thoughts and ideas and things going on all the time. Most people juggle 10 balls simultaneouly but I tend to juggle 100 dropping 30 and adding 70 all the time. I've tried all the suggested solutions list lists, PDA's, software, diaries etc but I always gravitate back to what's familiar (the chaos of scraps of paper, post it notes everywhere etc.)

My problem is that I am unable to record and collate my thoughts in that the recording, listing, collation process takes on a life of its own and becomes a project itself rather than just a supporting function. So I would end up with the perfect spreadsheet (with no real data)....that falls by the wayside soon enough. If I were to hand the though off to another person to take apropriate action it would free my mind up to get on with what needs to be done.

As I sit here I am thinking about the things that I need to do, the phone calls to make, the issues to resolve etc. and I would say that 90% of those could be handled perfectly well by a PA (in 1/10th of the time i would take to do it). The problem with me is not that I don't trust people to do something correctly, I am happy that they will because I taught them myself, it is that I'm just so used to being the local cook and bottle washer that it just comes naturally.

Ok, now to action: I need two new employees and I have made an offer to a young lady to work for me as a graphic designer / laser operator / marketer / general ideas bouncer offer - Maybe I should make part of her responsibilities to be my PA. The thing is that she will be taking over a large part of the work that I am doing and that we will have to work very closely together. I have to teach her everything that she will need to know. We seem to be on the same wavelength so it might just work. I just don't know whether I could sell the term PA to her but that is what she would be doing in a sense anyway with the realm of the laser cutter and associated issues

Your thoughts?

[pmbguy]

It sounds like the lady you will employ (not the PA) will have her hands full, and having her as your PA might eat at her own work load, processes and creativity. She will take some load off you, but it sound like you will just place load back on and end up just as you were before, workload wise. I know I would.

I suggest you also hire a 100% PA

[adrianh]

hmmm...fair enough. The ideal is of course that the lady that I am employing to fill the designer etc. role does just that. You're quite right in that I would probably distact her from doing what she should be concentrating on.

What would consider to be a fair ballpark average starting salary for a 100% PA that is also used in the business for other tasks.

[pmbguy]

I think +- 6, depending, to start with. Increase based on performance and time. I would suggest that HR Solutions or somebody confirm the salary range though.

You might even find the perfect person who is willing to work for free just to prove themselves.

It also depends in how much of a hurry you are. There 1000s of new graduates and young people off all kinds that have not found a job yet (Its May now already). Get 200+ young applicants who are very willing and happy to have any job at all. Then work your way to the best of the best of the best. Advertise privately and through all agencies. Let applicants know that the job is temporary, but you are seeking to make this position permanent.
You will be surprised how many bright young ambitious youngsters have no entry into the workforce.

It must be an ambitious intelligent individual. Gender is not a big issue but a young smart woman would be the best in my mind. Young woman generally work harder.
Properly inspect any previous employment for all applicants.

I read somewhere that one should always try hire employees that are smarter that you are.
I also think this kind of thing is very intuitive. You will know who to put on the short list.