Improve Attention to Detail

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kcin

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How have you guys improved your attention to detail in the past? Keen attention to detail is not something that comes naturally to me and I actually despise it. I’m much more of a big picture person but I recognize the need to improve my attention to detail.
I’ve found that printing out my work and reviewing it has helped to some degree but I still find that I tend to “gloss over” some of the small, insignificant things. Of course my colleagues seem to pick up on these things immediately which sucks.
Any suggestions or helpful hints would be appreciated.
 
Yoga helps a great deal to focus. That in turn helps in improving attention to detail.
No, I am not being trivial.
 
I’m with you completely kcin - I find tasks that require excessive attention to detail to be a real pain. At my first job (actuarial - verrrrry detailed, tedious work), I got burned a few times and just started reviewing things more carefully. It really sucks when a client comes back and catches a mistake (which they love to do).
The best thing to do is just try to focus and learn from your mistakes, which is what I’ve done. I’m getting better as time goes on.
 
Paying attention?
Play those first-person shooting games. You’ll have to pay attention to small details (footsteps, a slight movement in a window somewhere, etc.) in order to not get shot and to shoot the other person.
Where’s Waldo and those things where you spot the differences between two pictures are also good.
But just pay attention more. There’s no secret behind it.
 
I think the most important thing is to realize that details matter – you’re probably not “attentive to detail” enough either because you don’t care (which could be the case if your job sucks), or because you haven’t figured out what’s important yet. I find that being meticulous has less to do with memorizing everything that’s going on, and more to do with understanding what’s really important and why. Things that are important are basically the things that you can anticipate your teammate or client to ask you about. I find that improving attention to detail can be the result of better anticipation of other people’s needs, as well as better recognition of what’s important (versus what isn’t).
 
I always write emails, throw them into my draft box and then re-read them an hour or so later.
 
To the original poster’s point, I usually pick one up at the newsstand.
 
Great question.
I struggled with this early on but have been getting better. After reading numi’s posts and others I started assuming that everything I was about to send off/ turn it/ present has at least three errors in it. (Most of the time it does). I’d then print it out and triple check it until I found the errors.
Even if you know it’s perfect you have to have the discipline to go back and triple check.
 
I find serious attention to detail problems for new hires (not saying you have problems, but can’t believe how many errors I find when something has already been submitted and I see the work). I agree with numi, you have to look and see what matters in the document/analysis/etc and work backwards from there to see how the details are driving the work and affect the end product, and if or how they could possibly be off.
I think attention to detail is an integral part of finance in general.
 
I’m a big picture person too, and always get nervous when asked if I am a detail-oriented person. I start imagining commas out of place and an occasional mention of to where I should have written too.
What I’ve found is that most people find me sufficiently detail oriented after all; the real trick is knowing what details are critical for a particular analysis and making sure you have those covered. Of course, getting to that point takes some experience, and might just require a thick skin while you learn the los important details to watch in your new job.
 
1. Be fast, but never rush.
2. Check, Double-check, and triple-check your work
3. Never asssume it’s right, but always ensure it is
4. Stop thinking about what you’ll do next, start thinking about what you are doing now
5. Automate your work as much as you can, break it into small steps, orderly follow the steps that you have outlined.
6. Remember, it can always happen and that you’ll never be perfect
7. Pray
 
The keys to having adequate attention to detail are the following:
(1) Real motivation – you care GREATLY if your inattention to detail hurts your work
(2) Real patience – you take ALL the time necessary to check details or work more slowly to improve your detail accuracy, rather than being obsessed with finishing a task extra quickly. Your boss would rather have the output in 8 hours done right than have it in 6 hours done sloppy.
(3) Realistic self assessment – you realize that you CAN and DO make mistakes on the details, will continue to do so, and thus need to double check yourself.
On top of the above, try to focus on one task at a time until its completion to the full degree that is possible. Save and use templates when possible so that there are fewer places for you to make a possible mistake (or automate as much as you can).
In other words, Giristide had it just about right. This is all stuff that everybody learns in their first job on the buy or sell side. It’s good to be a bit embarassed when you make a stupid screwup, but keep your head up, and when you make a mistake figure out how you can avoid making it in the future.
 
I find fear is a good motivator for me to pay attention to detail.
How do you get afraid and stay afraid? (lol)
 
Try to critique the work of others on your own time (i.e. reading public resumes, essays, blog posts, etc.). Then when you are doing something similar, you’ll pay attention not to make the same mistakes.
 
kcin, can you give examples of the sort of details you have trouble with?
I do find that printing things and reading them helps a lot. Another thing I do is have my computer read things to me, which works for short pieces. I use a Mac, and Leopard’s new voice, “Alex,” is surprisingly natural for a machine (though would still never be mistaken for a real person).
 
I have also struggled with paying attention to details. I have found that I am much more likely to make a mistake the more time that I have spent pouring over something in a short amount of time. If I am working on a big project, I try to take a break and work on something else or take a day or two away from it if time permits. Then when I go back and review it, I am much more likely to find errors.
 
This exchange happened about three hours into a VERY contentious meeting with my firm, an opposing firm that was reviewing some work we did, and the CEO of the client company:
Opposing analyst: “Oops…”
Opposing expert: “Um, it seems that we, uh, had an error in our model. It looks like, we…uh…hardcoded a number we shouldn’t have.”
The 10-plus-minute tirade that the CEO went on was priceless, especially because numerous partners at the opposing firm were conferenced in for the meeting. I’m just glad I wasn’t that analyst. That was a career-limiting move, for sure.
 
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