Had a student in one of my classes tell me of a distraction they experienced. Unfortunately, it was me who was doing the distracting (and it wasn’t my dashingly handsome self — at least not this time).While entering the classroom much before class, I dropped a pile of books and materials and managed to knock the cap off a pen I was also carrying. While scrambling to catch the big things, I also caught the pen. Cap off. Felt-tip down. It drew on me in a rather random pattern (:-)), leaving a nice quarter-size area of blue between my thumb and forefinger. Once I realized it hadn’t gotten on my clothes, I washed my hands (ink didn’t come off) and didn’t worry any more about it.Turns out after class (a class on training skills, as it were), I was taken to task off the evaluation for being distracting. Seems every time I used gestures (open palm for the Western world, and I didn’t point), this big, blue blob drew at least one person’s eyes.It served as a reminder to me that it doesn’t take much for the adult mind to wanter. The presenter must work overtime to keep the focus on the message.
Minimize distractions.
