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Attention Span & Productivity – Book Recommendation

My main take-aways from Gloria Mark’s book: “Attention Span”
A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity

In her book “Attention Span“, Gloria Mark explores the impacts of today’s fast-paced technology on our attention spans, productivity, and happiness. She presents a lot of research done both by her own and other teams. Based on that, she offers advice, not only on how to gain more control over our attention, but also on finding balance between productivity and happiness.

Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity by Gloria Mark (2023). [1]

Here are just a few of the findings and insights I found helpful.

Fun facts about attention and productivity
Have our attention spans really decreased?

Maybe you are feeling it yourself? Or maybe you’ve heard humans’

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Effects of sleep deprivation on decision making

How does a lack of sleep affect our judgment? Does it really lead to poorer choices?

"Drowsy drivers use next exit": warning sign on Interstate 15 in Utah Unfortunately, the answer is many times yes. In my research into the topic, I’ve found at least eight ways how a lack of sleep affects different aspects of our judgment and decision making.

Sleep deprivation affects us both physically and mentally, and decision-making is a complex process that requires the orchestration of multiple neural systems, such as emotion, memory, and logical reasoning. It is therefore not too surprising that sleep deprivation would take a toll on many fronts.

Here are eight effects of sleep deprivation on decision making:

1) What’s perhaps best known is that it impairs attention and working memory, leading to slower reaction times, reduced vigilance, and more mistakes.

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Event Series: Procrastination and ADHD Follow-Through

Free webinar series with Vicki Lind (MS) and Ursina Teuscher (PhD) on Procrastination and ADHD.

Banner for Webinar Series on Procrastination and ADHD with Vicki Lind and Ursina Teuscher

Do you procrastinate? Do you have ADHD? Stalled on a project? 

Start 2023 with a clear plan and support by joining my colleague Vicki Lind and me in a webinar series and support hub. Do you struggle with procrastination or ADHD, or know someone who does? Learn more about procrastination and how to beat it, and get the support you need to follow through on your plans.

Vicki and I will teach three free interactive webinars together in January. Each week has a different focus:

Tue Jan 10, 9-10am PST: Support from Your Heart & Head
Tue Jan 17, 9-10am PST: Support from Others: Co-working, Bookending & Rewards
Tue Jan 24, 9-10am PST: Support from Your Tools: Your Calendar,

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Performing under Pressure

Have you ever choked when you needed to perform under pressure?

We all know what it feels like: you’ve been building your skill – whether it’s in academics, in your career, in sports, in performing arts – but when the big moment arrives, nothing seems to work. You hit the wrong note, drop the ball, get stumped by a simple question. In other words, you choke under the pressure.

Here, I will review a book by Sian Beilock about this topic, along with additional research, and I’ll highlight some findings that can help you perform at your own very best, even under pressure.

A book review and practical applications

Dr. Sian Beilock, an expert on performance and brain science, examines in her book “Choke” why we sometimes blunder and perform at our worst precisely when the stakes are highest.

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How to Nurture Your Brain

I’m happy to announce the publication of a literature review from a collaboration with my colleagues Raffaella Misuraca and Silvana Miceli from the Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy:

Misuraca, R., Miceli, S., & Teuscher, U. (2017). Three effective ways to nurture our brain: physical activity, healthy nutrition, and music. A review. European Psychologist, 22 (2), 101–120.

[Full text available from ResearchGate]

How to Nurture Your Brain

ABSTRACT: A growing body of research suggests that physical activity, healthy eating, and music can, either directly or indirectly, have positive effects on our brain and cognition. More specifically, exercising and eating seem to enhance cognitive abilities, such as memory, creativity, and perception. They also improve academic performance and play a protective role from many degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. Concerning music, research has shown that there exists a general positive relation between music aptitude and cognitive functioning.

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Infographic: Increase Your Productivity Without Burning Out

Here is a two-sided infographic. Together, the two pages give you a visual summary of my workbook: “Increasing Productivity in Healthy and Sustainable Ways”.

The first page provides an overview of important neurological and psychological findings. Based on those, I suggest best practices grouped along five broad principles.

The second page presents a framework for assessing your own work-habits, trouble-shooting your problems, and developing new habits.

Infographic: Increase Your Productivity in Healthy and Sustainable Ways

Infographic Productivity: Mastering Own Interventions

Find more information about the workbook here, or on Amazon, where you can look inside, read a sample, and see reviews. You can also order the workbook directly from the publisher on Createspace.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

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Book Recommendation: Your Brain at Work

David Rock. (2009). Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long.

This book gives very useful insights into how our brain works, and what we can do to make it work better. So far, it has been one of the most influential books for my own work in helping people be more productive in healthy and sustainable ways.

David Rock does a wonderful job bringing together a vast amount of research on cognitive neuroscience, and in helping us understand why our brains work better in some situations than others. Recognizing the limitations of our brain, he suggests very practical steps we can take to optimize our work days and maximize our brain’s potential.

He presents his advice through a series of anecdotes and stories of the “meet Emily and Paul” type.

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Decision Fatigue: Time for a Break Now?

It turns out that making decisions is tiring and wears us out, more so than other (similarly difficult) mental tasks. At this point, a large body of research shows that whenever we make many choices in a row, the quality of our decisions gets worse over time.

Decisions that are especially taxing are those that involve self-control. For example, when people fended off the temptation to eat M&M’s or freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies, they were then less able to resist other temptations later on.
Nourishment and Recovery
Self-control tasks and decisions also require more glucose in the brain than other mental tasks. Low or hypoglycemic levels of glucose lead to impaired decision making, poor planning, and inflexible thinking. In contrast, simple psychomotor abilities, such as responding quickly to certain cues, seem relatively unaffected by glucose levels.

Rest and Sleep

This pattern is in line with other things we know about impulsive behavior and typical self-control problems.

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