Attention! Attention please…

In my world, everything needs to be explained in 30 seconds, and if you don’t get your point across in 5, then you’re most likely to be ignored.

Imagine the damage this kind of philosophy does to a person’s attention span, in particular – my attention span.

Kids have an attention span of about 3 to 5 minutes. Adults, according to a motivational speaker I once met, can focus for about 15 to 20 minutes before their minds go a-wanderin’. If these 2 factoids were true, then I’d have the attention span of a 12-week old fetus.

Whenever I read a magazine, the first paragraph – or the lead paragraph as I taught my students – is the most crucial part of the article. If it’s not enough to pique my interest, then consider the whole article trashed.

Choosing a CD follows the same philosophy. When scanning an album, the first few beats of the song is my cue whether to listen to the entire song or simply press “FF.” When the first 10 seconds of the track is arresting enough, I know that the rest of the song would be great.

My Charlotte Church purchase was largely influenced by this “first few beats” philosophy. Eighty percent of the album’s tracks had an excellent opening vibe, and that’s a very high percentage.

Often, I find myself asking whether this is a trait worth cultivating or changing. Should I really be that critical to the first few seconds and judge the entirety based on that? Or to paraphrase the question in a cliché, should I “judge a book by its cover” or must “first impressions last?”