Attention residue is making you less effective

One massive shift for me moving from an individual contributor to a team leader role was going from keeping track of 1-3 content areas to 12+… when you layer on people leadership and administrative responsibilities, it’s no wonder so many managers struggle to keep up. They’re hopping straight from a business performance meeting to a 1:1 focused on a team member’s development to putting together a deck for a senior client, all while fielding questions on Slack about six different workstreams. It’s constant Alt-Tab, on our laptops and in our brains.

The problem is, with all this switching, we’re inherently leaving problems unsolved and tasks unfinished. And our brains hate that. It turns out, when you don’t “close out” a task and shift to something new, part of your attention stays behind trying to complete the original task. Researchers have coined an odd, kind of gross name for it: attention residue.

Why does it matter?

Like most residues (soap scum, greasy french fry bags, the remnants of a sticker, whatever is on children’s fingers), attention residue is not a good thing. Simply put, without your full attention on the new task at hand, performance suffers.

Plus, each time you have to switch between topics, tasks, or meetings, you lose precious time. One Harvard study tracked workers and found:

What can you do about it?

Here are a few of my favorite ways to keep attention residue at bay and support easier task and context switching.

Reinforce your brain with a good system. It doesn’t matter if it’s OneNote, Notion, or a good ol’ notebook and pen. You need somewhere to house notes, to-do’s, and references, in a way that can help your brain transition between contexts with as little work as possible. I like to organize notes by timeframe (e.g., by quarter) and project or topic, plus a separate section of weekly to-do lists. When I join a meeting or start a task on a particular topic, I can flip open to the appropriate section and easily refresh myself on where things stand.

One exec my husband worked with used color-coded papers taped to his desk, one for each department. When he joined a department meeting, he (half-jokingly, half proudly) whipped out the correspondingly-colored sheet. There he had reminders to himself on the overall goals and key numbers for the department, any loose ends from their last touchpoint, and questions that had come up throughout the week that he wanted to bring to the team.

Organize your work life in a way that works for you. Schedule your workday (to the extent you have flexibility!) around the natural ebbs and flows of your energy. Super focused in the mornings? Great, block two hours for a deep work session. Plagued by mid-afternoon slumps? Put in a reminder to go for a quick 10-minute walk to refresh. If your team is amenable, try scheduling (and sticking to!) 25- and 55-minute meetings to allow for a few minutes of transition. I use that time for status dumping, below!

I also love the technique of batching types of meetings and tasks, to reduce the need for “rule activation”. The idea here is that when you prep for and execute a 1:1 with your direct report, you brain is in 1:1 mode and is following those “rules”. If you immediately hop into a formal presentation right after, you’re asking your brain to remember and activate an entirely new set of “rules” to adapt to the new context. Instead, try scheduling like with like — e.g., all 1:1s are on Thursdays, or 1-hour blocks of small, batched admin tasks.

Try “status dumping” and other transition rituals. Often used by software developers, “status dumping” is a great, quick way to help shift your brain away from unfinished work with less ~residue~. It’s simply writing a brief note to self that covers what you’re up to and what’s next. It should also include any blockers or questions that will need to be addressed to move forward. I love using this technique with my daily to-do list. If the task isn’t fully completed but I need to move on, I’ll leave it unchecked and add a note to the side (e.g., [] Get contract signed with vendor — sent to lawyer, waiting for their review; follow up tmrw first thing if they haven’t gotten back yet)

Other transition rituals that may help? Close all the tabs or windows related to the task before you pivot to a new one. If it was a longer activity with deep thinking, get up and take a walk or a stretch. Signal to your body that you’ll be settling into something new.

Wishing you a work life free from residue,

Abby