 What precedes shows clearly the method for securing that undivided attention which is so essential to success in all kinds of work, whether mental or physical. "Mind your business" is a wise injunction, even if blunt. It is all embraced in the advice to dismiss all thoughts other than those which pertain exclusively to that which is in hand at the particular moment. The accountant who allows his mind to wander to other subjects when adding a column of figures cannot do his work so rapidly or so accurately as the one who shuts out all thoughts except those connected with his work. He must cease thinking of other things and think only of his addition. It must be one thing at a time. The ability to exclude one kind of thoughts from the mind enables one to exclude any thought, therefore practice in the exclusion of discordant thoughts will be an efficient preparation for success in avoiding all thoughts which do not pertain to the work immediately in hand. When the accountant is in the middle of a long column of figures, perhaps his employer asks him a question. He should have so trained himself in the control of his thinking that on the instant he can shut out of his mind all thought of the work he was doing when the question was asked, think of nothing else but the subject proposed, and answer the question as completely as though he had never thought of his addition. Then, in its turn, that subject, when he is done with it, should be dropped out of his mind completely, and he should return to the work he was doing when interrupted, with a similar exclusion of all else but thoughts of the work in hand. Such changes should always be accomplished without allowing irritation, impatience, anger, or other discordant thinking because of the interruption. The accountant's time is his employer's, his business is to do the work required by his employer, and whether his employer chooses to set him at one branch of work or another does not concern the employee. Many a clerk, because of occurrences like this, has habitually allowed some form of irritation to take such possession of his mind as to interfere seriously with his mental ability, ruin his efficiency, and destroy his health. This has caused many a nervous breakdown which was charged to over- work or hard work when its cause was not the work at all, but was solely the frequent irritation -- some- thing which the clerk himself might have wholly avoided without any change of action on the part of his employer. What has been said is true of every occupation and applies to activities of all kinds. The essential condition is that, although nothing may be over- looked or omitted, there should be one thing in the mind at one time -- and no more. The mental ability to do this can be attained by the practice already advocated, and the method can be applied to all occupations. The attention (attention is thinking) should be directed to the one thing that a person is doing to the total exclusion of everything else, whether the work is simple or complicated. If complicated, the attention should be fixed successively on each element of the complication to the exclusion for the time of all the others. When the first item of the series is completed, let it immediately become a thing of the past, because the mind ought to be fully and exclusively occupied with the next; and so on successively, each in its order, omitting none. If thoughts of other things besides the work in hand are allowed to enter the mind, some point in the execution of the work is liable to be overlooked or perhaps forgotten entirely. The mind cannot successfully attend to two things at once, for a part of the mind can never accomplish as much as the whole, and divided attention always causes inefficiency in some direction. In mental or physical labor the principle is the same, because mental action is at the basis of the whole, and therefore the rule is the same for both. As in the mental so in the physical, it is only through successful control of the smaller and more minute or apparently insignificant things that ability is gained to grapple with the greater or more abstract and general affairs. This is because the physical action depends on the mental and is caused by it. In every walk of life without exception, and in every period of its course, control of the thinking is of the greatest value and importance. The earlier this control is attained the better, but it is never too late to begin. Sometimes an almost unnoticed but continuous and persistent undercurrent of some kind of thinking entirely foreign to the work in hand divides and receives more or less of the attention. This may appear in any one of a thousand forms, having originated in some incident or condition of large or small importance which, for some indefinite reason or apparently for no reason at all, has fastened itself strongly upon the mind. Often this vaguely noticed thought is more difficult to exclude from the attention than one more consciously present, but its presence is a continuous menace to undivided attention; for, panther-like, it stands ready to spring into prominence through the slightest opening of circumstance. When the mind is directly engaged, it makes little difference whether it is mere revelry, listlessness, or vagueness which detracts from the attention. The result will be the same. Whatever the character of the intruder, success is gained only by its complete exclusion. Such a course of procedure as here indicated may be called concentration of the mind upon the particular subject in hand, but concentration is usually accompanied by consciousness of more or less strenuous mental effort, and, as has already been set forth, this mental exclusion should be accomplished without effort -- simply by letting go of all thoughts except those directly required for the prosecution of the work. Insomuch as there is stress and strain, there is instituted a second line of discordant thinking running alongside of the one whose exclusion is desired, and this gives the mind a double duty to perform, thus defeating the object sought by the very effort to accomplish it. |
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