Almost every recruitment process for a large company these days requires going through a battery of aptitude tests – especially in the IT industry. IQ tests, emotional intelligence tests, personality tests, and social skill tests.

You will get tested inside and out. But recruitment processes typically overlook at least two crucial factors of productivity: attention span and curiosity.

What Happens to Your Attention Span After the Interview?

As a matter of fact, everyone can drink five coffees, get focused for a while, and intelligently answer questions for ten minutes at the job interview. With a whip over your head, you will focus and perform. Notably, according to Schmidt and Hunter (1998), general mental ability tests do predict job performance, but far from perfectly.

Well, most people can do this at least. But, when you get a job when you are left alone at your desk for the whole day, will you stay the same focus? Or rather, will you start looking around, lurking at the window, chatting with other employees, and compulsively visiting social media every five minutes? 

Why Is Distractibility Such a Big Problem at Work?

Distractibility is a big problem in our times. Cal Newport wonderfully described this in his famous book “Deep Work.“

A person who is a bit less intelligent but does not use social media will probably eventually become more productive and successful. This holds even against a person who is smart but cannot focus for half an hour. Indeed, according to Duckworth and Seligman (2005), self-discipline predicts achievement better than IQ does.

I am struggling with this process of slowly losing the attention span myself. But I still think that, compared to some people around me, I keep myself on the safe side.

According to Mark, Gudith & Klocke (2008), presented at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, found that interruptions hurt performance. Workers who are interrupted while doing a task take significantly longer to complete it. They also report higher stress, frustration, and time pressure than those who work uninterrupted.

Social media addiction is a disease like any other, as using local media evokes the same dopamine loop in the brain as pathological gambling. Given how many people suffer from chronic distractibility with social media, I can predict something for the coming years.

The bare ability to reach a deep work state of mind will become rare. It will become so rare, in fact, that professionals will list it as a separate competency on their resumes.

How Can You Build Self-Discipline Against Social Media?

Because of these addictive properties of social media, it requires certain self-discipline not to fall into the spiral of addiction. One technique for keeping self-discipline at work which I can recommend is Pomodoro.

It’s the most classic way of managing time: you predefine slots of time for work and rest, and stick to the schedule throughout the day. And in Pomodoro, working slots should be genuine sprints of focused, non-interrupted work.

Classic Pomodoro involves 25-minute working slots interleaved with 5-minute breaks. But researchers found that in fact, the perfect rhythm is 52-minute working slots versus 17-minute breaks.

Should You Ever Just Switch Off the Internet?

Another possible strategy to prevent addiction to social media can be switching off the internet completely. I developed my best texts and best research concepts on the days when there was a shortage of internet in my neighbourhood, for whatever reason. Yet, I do not dare to switch off from social media completely (just yet).

I would also be happy to hear other smart ways of keeping social media usage limited. What are some ways of actively working on improving your attention span? Any ideas?

Why Does Curiosity Matter More Than Aptitude Scores?

The second very important aspect of productivity that current aptitude tests don’t give a grasp on, is curiosity. All people are naturally curious to learn — just to varying degrees.

According to Gruber, Gelman & Ranganath (2014), published in Neuron, states of high curiosity enhance memory formation in the hippocampus. This means people learn and retain information better when they are genuinely curious about it.

Or rather, we are all curious about other things. Even if you focus on the tests during the recruitment process, you might still get good results. But how can that help you be productive at work if the subject matter isn’t exciting to you?

Curiosity is probably even harder to measure than attention span. Yet, as it is such a strong factor, I feel that we should measure or assess it, in one way or another.

Disclaimer: My company, Welcome Solutions, is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This is an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. The link to Cal Newport’s book in this blog post is an associate link.