An extraterrestrial being has done cartwheels in front of you, tapped you on the shoulder twice, and you barely registered any of it. You are experiencing \u201cflow,\u201d that glorious span of time when your focus does not waver. Not one bit, not one ounce. Afterwards, you feel great, you feel productive \u2013 you feel accomplished (if not a little worn out).<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve achieved this heightened sense of focus by flexing your working memory. Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, in his article \u201cIn Defense of Working Memory Training<\/a>,\u201d defines working memory like this: \u201c[It] involves the ability to maintain and manipulate information in one’s mind while ignoring irrelevant distractions and intruding thoughts.\u201d So when there\u2019s a critical task or project on the line, working memory is our best friend. It allows us to muster up a concentrated form of focus to get tasks done.<\/p>\n Tracy Packiam Alloway, a psychologist at the University of North Florida, studies working memory and believes that it\u2019s more important than relying on IQ (of which working memory is a building block). Her definition offers some additional depth to Kaufman\u2019s version by saying that it has significant bearing on the \u201cability to learn, your potential; it doesn’t measure what you have learned.\u201d The ability to learn and stay on target are two skills that business students absolutely must possess \u2013 and sharpen \u2013 as they start out in their careers, and continue to advance in the workplace.<\/p>\n But activating your working memory to achieve laser-like focus isn\u2019t always as easy as flipping a light switch. It can be a challenging proposition in a world where distractions abound like pieces of floating lint. They are everywhere and they can be obstacles. Gearing up the will and discipline to dodge and resist distractions isn\u2019t easy, but it\u2019s an important skill at the crux of what makes people productive and successful.<\/p>\n According to Kaufman, \u201cworking memory skills are essential for everyday intellectual functioning. Multiple research studies show that\u00a0the inability to control one’s train of thought has important\u00a0real world consequences, from poor\u00a0reading comprehension\u00a0to\u00a0unhappiness.\u201d More on that last part in a bit.<\/p>\n For a long time, experts believed that working memory is \u201cfixed,\u201d meaning that your capacity for working memory is like a car\u2019s gas tank \u2013 its dimensions are set, and its size is unique to you. It may be larger than some peoples\u2019, or smaller, and there\u2019s nothing you can do to change the size. In the last few years, however, neuroscientists have begun to disagree, with some arguing that \u201cbrain training\u201d can increase the capacity of working memory, even if only for the short-term. (For more on that debate, you can go here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n What we do know for sure is that distractions are not working memory\u2019s only nemesis. Let me introduce you to another. It has many names, but we\u2019ll go with this one: \u201cmind-wandering.\u201d You could be all alone, in a sound proof chamber, in a stone tower, on a deserted island, where distractions are few or non-existent, and you might still be thwarted from focusing. It\u2019s tough to be productive and creative if you can\u2019t reign in the tendency to wander through a chain of successive thoughts \u2013 from the pragmatic to the fantastical. When time\u2019s a-ticking, this can spark a code red stress alert.<\/p>\n But apart from telling yourself to \u201cstop it,\u201d what else can you do to reign in a wandering mind so that working memory can power through? A team of psychologists at the University of Santa Barbara had the same question, so they decided to see if they could come up with some answers \u2013 or at least some insights.<\/p>\n In the article \u201cBrief Mindfulness Training May Boost Test Scores, Working Memory<\/a>,\u201d Anna Mikulak quotes UCSB psychologist Michael Mrazek as saying: \u201cDespite the wide recognition that mind-wandering is a pervasive and often disruptive influence in our lives, almost no research has established effective strategies for reducing mind-wandering.\u00a0We set out to find ways to reduce mind wandering and thereby improve performance within educational contexts.\u201d<\/p>\n Mrazek and team decided to find out if practicing mindfulness techniques (or not) could reduce mind-wandering, thereby boosting working memory. They split a group of students into two. The first group took a class specifically on mindfulness, applying strategies that allowed them to \u201cmaintain focus on the present moment\u201d in and out of class. The second set of students took a nutrition class that required them to record their daily diet intake, but make no other changes. Researchers then had both groups repeat a section of the GRE and a working memory exercise that they had taken prior to participating in the classes.<\/p>\n The mindfulness-trained students not only bested their first round of scores, they also scored an average of 16 points higher than the nutritionist students. Mikulak quoted Mrazek as saying: \u201cEven with a rigorous design and effective training program, it wouldn\u2019t be unusual to find mixed results [\u2026] But we found reduced mind-wandering in every way we measured it and improved performance on both reading comprehension and working memory capacity.\u201d Booya!<\/p>\n But if you\u2019re still not convinced that addressing mind-wandering will help you professionally and personally, maybe this will do it: according to psychologist Matt Killingsworth, when people mind-wander they are less happy than those who would describe themselves as \u201cin the moment\u201d and \u201cfocused.\u201d In his 2012 TEDxCambridge talk<\/a>, Killingworth posited: \u201cMaybe happiness has an awful lot to do with the contents of our moment to moment experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n To find out, Killingsworth created a website, trackyourhappines.org, to send out daily, randomly timed surveys to people in order to collect their in-the-moment level of happiness. At the time of his TEDxCambridge talk, he had amassed a lot of data \u2013 650,000 surveys from a wide variety of respondents all over the world. In his analysis, Killingsworth found that \u201cpeople are substantially less happy when their minds are wandering than when they\u2019re not\u201d \u2013 even when they are doing something unpleasant, like commuting in gridlock traffic.<\/p>\n Killingsworth was also able to determine an average frequency at which people mind-wander. \u201c47% of the time people are thinking of something other then what they are currently doing.\u201d Hmm. That sounds like a lot of distracted, and possibly unhappy, people out there. But that doesn\u2019t have to be the end of the story, because Killingsworth isn\u2019t done with his research.<\/p>\n \u201cMy hope is that over time, by tracking peoples\u2019 moment to moment happiness and their experiences in daily life, we\u2019ll be able to uncover a lot of important causes of happiness. And then in the end, a scientific understanding of happiness will help us create a future that\u2019s not only richer and healthier, but happier as well.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s also not the end of our story (at least on mind-wandering and working memory). In our next post we\u2019ll review some mindfulness techniques, and also discuss how meditation factors into all of this. Because while the jury is still out on whether or not it\u2019s possible to permanently increase your working memory capacity (and in turn increase your overall IQ), you may not need extra cerebral horsepower to do stupendous things. You may be able to acquire skills to keep your mind on a shorter leash, thus allowing you to do the things you already do well even more stupendously than ever before.<\/p>\n To participate in the Track Your Happiness study, you can click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Photo courtesy of Labguest<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Hult offers a range of highly skills-focused and employability-driven business school programs<\/a> including a range of MBA options and a comprehensive one year Masters in International Business<\/a>. To find out more, take a look at our blog The advantages of a specialized MBA or Masters degree in business<\/a>. Download a brochure or get in touch today to find out how Hult can help you to learn about the business world, the future, and yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An extraterrestrial being has done cartwheels in front of you, tapped you on the shoulder twice, and you barely registered any of it. You are experiencing \u201cflow,\u201d that glorious span…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n