Losing Attention

I’ve noticed an interesting trend lately: I’m having more trouble catching the various prompts and other such on my computer. I think it has to do with bigger screens.

It looks like this: when a friend sends me an IM or someone sends me an email, I don’t always notice. Sometimes it takes hours. I’m losing my ability to pay attention. I hate ignoring people, even unintentionally, so this is somewhat bothersome.

When I’m just in front of my little laptop screen, I don’t have as much trouble. But when I have things spread out across two screens and tons of windows, I miss things more often. It’s even more so when I don’t have the sound turned up.

This makes me wonder though, when things get busy or life just gets spread out, what else do we miss? How many of those things are even more important than a message from a customer or friend? How many of those things are messages from family, friends, customers, and so on? What should we be doing differently to pay more attention in places where it’s important?