Sustaining attention as one of the functions of consciousness

After the necessary models have been chosen or the necessary decisions have been made, it is important to keep attention on them: on implementing decisions, on aligning models and/or the physical world with what exists in the physical world or has been modeled. For example, changes have been introduced into your schedule - meetings have been postponed to the next day, and mornings have been reserved for focused work - and now you strive to follow the new schedule and prevent (as much as possible) attempts to schedule meetings in the morning. Or you started creating an enterprise ontology - you keep the focus on it until a version is made that is truly applicable in the company and convenient for employees, enabling faster agreements. All this is ensured by stability, or uninterrupted attention holding at the necessary time scale.

The concept of attention holding is relevant when attention is already focused, and it is better to talk conceptually (or associatively, but with well-developed instructions). For example, the objects of attention are defined as "budget" and "budget report," and there is a checklist on how to provide the department's budget report in a standard form. Then it makes sense to talk about how to maintain attention on regularly providing such reports. But until attention is focused, the objects "budget" and "budget report" may sink into obscurity: they are discussed in passing, but nothing is done.

Focusing attention on the right things can be difficult, especially if the "right" things are unfamiliar. For example, a person is just starting to fulfill the role of an engineer. It may be difficult for them to develop a usage concept: they have to sit with textbooks, figure out how to create a work product, consult with colleagues, look at examples of other work products, and so on. But maintaining attention on long time scales (a year or more) is often even more challenging. For instance, keeping focus on "training" for two weeks is relatively easy, but establishing a habit of training and maintaining it for over a year is difficult. Selling a product once is possible, but selling it regularly is more challenging.

Furthermore, achieving long-term goals often depends not so much on having a sophisticated strategy but on holding attention on actions that are definitely not wrong. For example, as dieticians say, you can lose weight with any diet - as long as it follows the principle of "burn more calories than you consume." It doesn't matter which specific exocortex you choose for writing thinking - what matters is that you do it. Italian families that have maintained their wealth for centuries (as mentioned in section 3) invested in various companies - the essential aspect was not to "choose the only correct company (or even sector," but to "not lose money out of foolishness and invest in something that can be passed on to children."

Another reason to discuss attention holding separately is the fact that it will still be focused on something. An agent will regularly maintain attention on the familiar. But we have the power to choose what exactly will become familiar. If you do not consciously select good objects of attention, you will randomly focus on them and continue to do so. For example, in customer service, a practice may spontaneously develop where customer inquiries are not processed according to established rules. Instead of queuing inquiries based on criticality, urgency, importance for the customer and the company, inquiries will be handled on a "who shouts the loudest" basis. This often leads to situations where non-critical, non-urgent, and less damaging issues for non-priority customers are prioritized over the problems of the best customers. Attention to inquiries and customers is disproportionately given to less important matters - and this happens regularly. A similar problem exists with tasks.

So, attention will be maintained on something regardless - but if you don't consciously choose, it will be focused associatively, and attention will be held on models and actions that do not lead to results.

Additionally, achieving some results depends not so much on time as on the number of attempts. To learn to run, you need to put in the effort and conduct a sufficient number of training sessions. To achieve the desired sales figures or attract customers, a considerable number of hypothesis tests are necessary: 30-50-100-200 and so on. Initial results of a practice can often be expected after a minimum of 100 repetitions. In marketing, there is sometimes talk of the "breakthrough effect": reaching a certain marketing budget threshold needed to get returns from an advertising channel. If less is invested, the effect may not be achieved. For example, marketers suggest that testing the hypothesis that distributing flyers for offline businesses will be effective is worth doing with 500-1000-2000 flyers, not 200-300.

The same breakthrough effect can be found in other activities. The numbers of repetitions and resources spent will be different, but the principle remains the same - to keep attention on a sufficient number of attempts.

Moreover, maintaining attention on activities allows for them to become automated. Proficiency, the ability to act not only qualitatively but also quickly, is achieved through repetitions, "hours logged." Pilots undergo lengthy training on simulators and training flights before being allowed to fly commercial aircraft. It is important for them to have a well-practiced skill of avoiding an aircraft stall. But it's not only pilots who need well-honed automation: employees should have good work habits, such as auditing completed work and improving the quality of work products, and teams should have a habit of focusing primarily on delivering work products/releases/goods and services, that is, optimizing on the output, not the input. Quality automations significantly reduce the workload on S2, not using it for standard control of employee actions - instead, allocating maximum S2 resources to solve the most complex creative problems. Furthermore, quality automations can be a lifesaver in critical situations - as with well-trained pilots or drivers.