Maintaining Focus in a World of Distractions

Article Outline

• Copyright

• 
  • View Large Image
  • Download to PowerPoint

ONE IMPORTANT JOB of an editor is to decide upon a salient topic for the editorial column for each issue. I welcome this responsibility as an opportunity to have a forum to express my thoughts and, hopefully, to encourage others to ponder the topic addressed. I am constantly challenged, however, in deciding on the topic on which to focus. There are so many “hot topics” in nursing, in health care, and in the world. How do I select one area of focus in a world composed of so many urgent issues?

And so, this morning, I am poised in front of my computer with a myriad of topics whirling in my head, but the topic that seems to trump all the others is the sense of being distracted by so many things. Why do I feel distracted? Is it just me? Is it something about what is happening in nursing? Or in health care? Or in our country? Or even in the world? In contemplating these questions, I have come to realize that we do live in a world filled with distractions. The first thing I do every morning is make myself a cup of really good strong coffee and sit down with the newspaper—our household subscribes to three newspapers (the New York Times to get a national perspective, the Los Angeles Times to get a regional perspective, and the Orange County Register to get a local perspective). I often have the television news on at the same time. So between all these news sources and the caffeine, it makes sense that I feel distracted! At the same time, I believe that being distracted is not necessarily bad. In fact, I would suggest that we reframe the connotation of distraction as a disruption or disturbance to distraction as a sense of wonderment of the world around us. It is imperative that we live with the distractions while being focused enough to constructively address and solve problems, whether these problems are contained in research questions or in patients' illnesses.

So today I have decided to write about how we actually do focus in this world of distractions and how we can function and be successful. The key challenge is being able to focus on the immediate and salient issues while simultaneously maintaining a larger perspective that allows awareness and understanding of the complexities that do indeed impact all that we do.

I believe that this is relevant to our success in nursing. From an academic perspective, nurse researchers must grapple with how to design a research study, focusing in clearly on the specific aims of the study. To determine the specific aims, they must be able to focus amidst lots of distractions due to the entire host of possible aims that are relevant to the larger issue of concern, whatever that issue may be. By developing the specific aims, the researcher then has a framework from which to continue to focus on the “specifics” of the research. But how does the researcher maintain this focus in the face of countless research questions that continue to surface in the process of developing and conducting the study?

From a clinical perspective, nurses must grasp the big picture of their patients' conditions. At the same time, nurses must be able to focus in on the most important aspects of a patient's illness, the chief complaints, and they must develop a nursing care plan to guide them in the focused care of their patients. As with research, in clinical practice, the nurse must maintain his or her focus on the priority aspects for each patient while simultaneously considering the holistic and comprehensive nature of each patient—each person who embodies a multitude of needs. To effectively care for each patient, the nurse must focus on what needs immediate attention. However, it is imperative that the nurse focus on these immediate needs without losing sight of the whole person—what nursing is all about after all!

So what “take-away message” is in these thoughts? My own sense is that the important nugget that is embedded in this conundrum is that we must be able to focus, but we also must maintain an awareness of the big picture. We must not lose an appreciation of the multifaceted world in which we live nor lose a perspective that embraces the complexity that is a reality in our lives. In short, focusing is essential to success, but we don't want to focus to the point of having tunnel vision. My hope is that each of us will be able to be focused enough to know which tunnel to go through to get to where we want to go. And while we are in the tunnel, we can't forget our destination that exists outside of the tunnel. We must focus on the intricacies of the tunnel itself while simultaneously being concerned about the world beyond the tunnel.