Attention to Detail: The skill that unlocks higher effectiveness, productivity in individual and teamwork

Today, soft skills are becoming the game changer when applying for a job. They are what employers use to differentiate between prospects with the same degree or past work experience. For this reason we want to analyze attention to details and how it impacts collaboration.

Attention to details can be defined as thoroughness in accomplishing a task through concern for all the areas involved, no matter how small. It ensures you maintain efficiency as you work through projects, increasing your productivity, and reducing the chances of mistakes and errors, making your job easier in the long run.

Our threshold of attention is very limited, never as today we are surrounded by so many different stimuli. Technology and our generally hectic lifestyles seem to contribute to that. It is easy for our mind to tend to be tuned to several channels at the same time, and be divided between the physical world in which we find ourselves and the one to which our devices connect us.

Although being multitasking is a requirement in the modern world, it is not always advisable when it comes to improving the attention to detail skill and ability to focus and concentrate.
For us to achieve that, we must be aware of and develop our attention in all its facets:

  • Focalized attention: the ability to select only the relevant stimuli, discarding the distracting ones
  • Sustained attention: the ability to maintain the necessary concentration to achieve a certain task or goal that requires a long time
  • Divided attention: being able to hold attention to do multiple tasks simultaneously
  • Alternating attention: doing multiple tasks by moving the attention from one to the other

Having a good level of attention leads people to be more productive without delaying their commitments. This allows individuals to balance the time to be dedicated to work and duty and the time that they can dedicate to free time.

This is extremely useful when collaborating. Collaboration is the process of two or more people or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. If every team member can be effectively attentive to details while working on their individual tasks, the end result would definitely be of a higher quality.