Quality Time (Focussed Attention)
Your wife is asking about your workplace while you're playing Angry Birds on your phone. You answered her while still playing. Are you giving her Focussed Attention?
You are watching TV with your kids. Are you giving them Focussed Attention?
Giving 100% attention of your time to someone could be tiring. You don't have to do it all the time, as long as it's high quality in a short duration.
To me, there are 3 types of attention. Focussed Attention, Diluted Attention and No Attention. I'll show you the key differences.
Situation A:
- watching TV together
- watching TV together and talk about the drama
- watching TV together and talk about each other's day
Situation B:
- playing a ball with your kid
- playing a ball with your kid while talking on the phone
Situation C:
- being in the same room
- being in the same room and chat
- being in the same room, and chat, and looking at a piece of art over her shoulders
Why giving focussed attention is an act of love?
I have received a lot of response from Steemians that Love is Respect, Respect is Love. When you give 100% of your attention to someone, you are giving respect. It is an act of love. The person felt he/she matters, and worthy of your attention.
Based on the situations at the top of this post, which do you think falls under these categories?
- Focussed Attention
- Diluted Attention
- No Attention
Note: Share your answers in the comment below. And tell us why!
In my humble personal opinion, these are my thoughts,
| Focussed Attention | Diluted Attention | No Attention |
|---|---|---|
| Playing a ball with your kid | Watching TV together and talk about the drama | Watching TV together |
| Watching TV together and talk about each other's day | Playing a ball with your kid while talking on the phone | Being in the same room |
| Being in the same room and chat | Being in the same room, chatting and looking at a piece of art over her shoulders |
Focussed Attention is manifested when you put 100% of your attention to your partner, and whatever activity you're doing together is secondary.
My boyfriend and I run together. We'll walk to the park, do warm-ups, run and cool down. During the course of walking to the park and warming up, we're chatting about random stuffs. When it's time to run, we run at our own pace. No conversations.
Sometimes he would pat my back and encourage me to run while I am walking. He's a better runner than I am 😋
At the end of the run, we'll stop and cool down together. Then we continue chatting until we reach our house.
Now, at which point we are giving focussed attention, diluted attention or no attention to each other?
Focussed Attention
- Walking to the park
- Warming up
- Cooling down
- Walking to our house
No Attention during the run.
Why?
During the course of walking, warming up, cooling down, we are talking to each other. We are giving each other 30 minutes of our life. We don't care what we're doing, we're just focussed on each other and talk. That's Focussed Attention.
But when we run, we focus on running, completing the mileage. That's No Attention.
What about Diluted Attention? Simply speaking, it's multitasking. You talk to each other but your mind is thinking about tonight's dinner, while your hands are typing on the phone while your eyes are averted to a beauty in front of you. This human is really busy, isn't it? 😏
I hope you've understood the key differences between Focussed Attention, Diluted Attention, and No Attention. Moving on, the part you've been anticipating,
How to give focussed attention?
I understand giving a person 100% attention at all times is tiring (I've been there, done that). So let's make it a high quality Focussed Attention instead (short-lived but high quality).
- Create a 20-minute daily or weekly (undisturbed) ritual. In this ritual, you give 20 minutes of your life to each other. No phones, no TV, no kids, just the both of you.
- Ask questions about each other (understands each other more)
- Give appreciations
- Apologize if you've wronged
- Hug or Kiss or Cuddle (Physical Intimacy)
- Anything that you can think of, as long as it's about both of you.
- Turn on your Focussed Attention mode when
- your partner wants you to listen
- your partner is telling their problems, worries, etc.
- your partner is giving you feedback or advice
- your partner is complaining about stuff
- When your partner wants your love
- and any other situations that you think you need to listen
My Rituals
My boyfriend and I have daily, monthly, quarterly and yearly rituals 😊
Daily: 30 minutes of cuddling. During cuddling, we'll talk about random stuff in our lives. How's our day, how do we feel, what's our love tank level, and some way off-topic stuff.
Note: This is so effective in improving intimacy and transparency.
Monthly: A better or almost luxurious meal under one person's tab. We take turns every month to decide on a special place to eat. I was assigned even months, and he is taking odd months. So this month is my treat (Hello, flat purse 😔)
Quarterly: A day or overnight trip. Doesn't matter where, as long as we spend a whole day or 2D1N together 😘
Yearly: 4 days to a week long vacation. Location doesn't matter as well. We'll spend time somewhere outside the city or country and explore new places. It is also time for us to reflect the year.
You may have noticed I do not have Weekly Ritual. If you have any ideas, please drop by in the comments.
The rituals are tremendously effective!
We get to understand each other more, confess our worries, be more intimate, being transparent, being open, appreciate each other, and all kinds of love you can show, we did it during the rituals. We can basically tell everything. And the greatest lesson I've learnt through my daily rituals is,
Be vulnerable to each other
Q: What would you do to give focussed attention to your loved ones?
This Relationship Tips series include practical how's and what's of speaking your partner's love language. If your partner's love language is Physical Touch and Quality Time, I will share firsthand experiences of what I've done and its results :)
Relationship Tips is one of my initiative to help people improve their relationship based on a book I was reading The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman and my experiences.
Check out my series here:
Getting Started with Love Language
Relationship Tips #1: Know Your Partner's Love Language Here!
Relationship Tips #2: How to keep the love tank full, or most of the time full?
Relationship Tips #3: Is This "In Love" or "Real Love"?
Love Language #1 Words of Affirmation
Relationship Tips #4:How to Express Love with Words of Encouragement
Relationship Tips #5: How to Express Love with Words of Kindness
Relationship Tips #6: How to Express Love with Requests, not Demands
Relationship Tips #7: 7 Best Ways to Show Love With WORDS
Love Language #2 Quality Time
Relationship Tips #8 Do You have Time for Your Love?
I believe having a good relationship will carve a positive path in all areas of your life. This belief is backed up by an 80 year-old research by Harvard University.
@tifaong writes simple and positive practices and ideas that you can learn (or re-learn) and apply in your life immediately. She covers life lessons, self-help, relationships, positive thinking and self-love. Her mission is to spread positivity so that we can live a happier life.
Check out her profile here to find out more 😁
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