I told my family last week that Friday was going to be a tough day at work. Not because of a critical deadline, but because Taylor Swift was dropping Life of a Showgirl and I knew I would be distracted.
And to be honest, I was.
I don’t usually listen to music while I work, but Friday morning I did. I found myself monitoring the Hencove Swifties Slack channel for the latest hot takes, relistening to songs, laughing at memes, dissecting and deciphering lyrics.
This isn’t a blog about how I lost a workday to Taylor Swift. I promise, I was still productive! With my attention not 100% laser-focused on checking projects off my to-do list, I started to notice some other effects.
I was chatting with teammates I don’t always get the chance to talk to.
I wrote a LinkedIn post that demonstrates one of our core Hencove values: humor.
I felt more tapped into my creativity and came up with some punchy ad copy I’d been dreading writing all week.
I stepped away from a tricky email I had been stuck on, came back to it, and finally knew what I needed to say.
The day felt lighter. Not less productive, just different.
We’ve glorified focus mode at work, and I’ll be the first to say I’m a huge fan of getting heads down on a project. I’ve been known to completely tune out what’s going on around me when I get absorbed in the work. That type of concentration matters, but so does letting your attention bend toward something unexpected.
Our attention is elastic. It can stretch toward the things that make us laugh or feel connected, then snap back when it’s time to deliver. That same elasticity is what lets us step away from a spreadsheet and into a Slack thread, only to return with a sharper idea. It’s not wasted time, it’s the stretch that makes the snap back stronger.
So here’s me saying I’ll get the work done, but I may just pause for a quick synopsis of my favorite tracks with my colleagues along the way. And the work will be better off for it.
Maybe it’s time to give yourself permission to stretch, too.
