Multitasking Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Situational Awareness Matters!™

Weather Can Impact Situational Awareness

1 Comment / Article, Attention Management, Communications, Competency, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Fatigue, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Information overload, Multitasking, Risk Assessment, Safety, Situational awareness, Stress, Teamwork, Weather / Rich Gasaway

You may recall from earlier discussions that situational awareness is formed by gathering information about what is happening in the environment around you. Then, your brain takes that information and attempts to form an understanding of what it all means. Finally, after understanding what it means, you make predictions of future events. This is a […]

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Mission Myopia: A situational awareness barrier

2 Comments / Article, Attention Management, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Ego, Human Factors, Meta Awareness, Multitasking, Risk Assessment, Safety, Size Up, Task Saturation, Tunneled Senses / Rich Gasaway

The primary mission in all emergency situations is to save lives and property. In some agencies when a new member is inducted into the organization they take an oath of office that includes pledging their commitment to this mission. The mission is an important – even noble – calling. But what happens when a responder

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Episode 234 | The Dirty Dozen – Killer Situational Awareness Barriers

Leave a Comment / Auditory exclusion, Cognitive Memory, Communications, Complacency, Confabulation, Confusion, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Expectations, Experience, Fear, Gut Feeling, Habits, Hallucinations, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Hyper Vigilance, Information overload, Intuition, Judgment, Long-Term Memory, Meta Awareness, Miscommunications, Mission, Mission Myopia, Multitasking, Muscle Memory, Overload, Overwhelm, Perception, Perception Of Reality, Prediction, Pressure, Radios, Repetition, Risk Assessment, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Sensory Conflict, Shared Mental Models, Short Term Memory, Situational awareness, Size Up, Stress, Tacit Knowledge, Task Fixation, Tunnel Vision, Tunneled Senses, Under Confident, understaffing, Vigilance, Workload Management, Worksheets / Rich Gasaway

This episode discusses some of the most challenging barriers to situational awareness while working in high-risk, high-consequence environments. This is part 2 so if you missed part 1 – Episode 233 – be sure to check it out first and that will help you understand the challenges we are going to discuss here. Length: 36

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Episode 233 | The Process for Developing Situational Awareness

Leave a Comment / Auditory exclusion, Cognitive Memory, Communications, Complacency, Confabulation, Confusion, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Expectations, Experience, Fear, Gut Feeling, Habits, Hallucinations, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Hyper Vigilance, Information overload, Intuition, Judgment, Long-Term Memory, Meta Awareness, Miscommunications, Mission, Mission Myopia, Multitasking, Muscle Memory, Overload, Overwhelm, Perception, Perception Of Reality, Prediction, Pressure, Radios, Repetition, Risk Assessment, Routines, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Sensory Conflict, Shared Mental Models, Short Term Memory, Situational awareness, Size Up, Stress, Tacit Knowledge, Task Fixation, Tunnel Vision, Tunneled Senses, Under Confident, Vigilance, Workload Management, Worksheets / Rich Gasaway

The episode discusses the process for developing and maintaining situational awareness. We will discuss the foundation, walls and roof of the SA development process. This is part 1 of a 2-part episode. Length: 36 minutes Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO __________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking

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Fifteen Situational Awareness Barriers

2 Comments / Accountability, Article, Attention Management, Auditory exclusion, Confabulation, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Information overload, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Prediction, Repetition, Safety, Situational awareness, Task Saturation, Tunneled Senses / Rich Gasaway

The mission of Situational Awareness Matters is to help you see the bad things coming… in time to change bad outcomes. SA is a complex neurological process and I go to painstaking efforts to ensure that what I teach here, on the podcast and in classrooms is “first responder friendly.” I don’t ever want a

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Divided Attention Test

3 Comments / Article, Attention Management, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Multitasking / Rich Gasaway

In a recent Mental Management of Emergencies program, we were talking about multitasking. During the discussion I explained what happens when a person attempts to multitask the act of paying of attention – which is neurologically impossible by the way. This turned the discussion to a sobriety test administered by police officers called the Divided

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Chatty TSA Agents

1 Comment / Accountability, Article, Attention Management, Auditory exclusion, Automatic Action, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Experience, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Information overload, Interruptions, Multitasking / Rich Gasaway

It is possible that while you are attempting to pay attention to something, you can be drawn off your task by distractions or interruptions to your workload. A distraction is something that pulls your attention away by accident (like a reflex look in the direction of a loud noise). An interruption is something that pulls

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Episode 145 | Task Saturation

Leave a Comment / Attention Management, Emotions, Human Factors, Information overload, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Perception, Repetition, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Task Saturation / Rich Gasaway

In this episode, we discuss the challenges when first responders become task saturated. Length: 26 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level, check out the Situational Awareness Matters Online Academy. CLICK HERE for

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Episode 133 | The Devil’s Advocate

Leave a Comment / Attention Management, Auditory exclusion, Cognitive Memory, Confusion, Decision Making, Disoriented, Distractions and Interruptions, Human Factors, Information overload, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Overwhelm, Perception Of Reality, Prediction, Pressure, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Short Term Memory, Stress, Task Saturation, Workload Management / Rich Gasaway

In this episode, we discuss the role of the devil’s advocate on emergency scenes and how the advocate can help when there is a flawed perception of reality. Length: 27 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making

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Episode 131 | Best practices for managing mental workload

Leave a Comment / Attention Management, Auditory exclusion, Cognitive Memory, Communications, Confusion, Decision Making, Disoriented, Distractions and Interruptions, Human Factors, Information overload, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Overwhelm, Perception Of Reality, Prediction, Pressure, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Short Term Memory, Stress, Task Saturation, Workload Management / Rich Gasaway

In this episode, we discuss five best practices for managing mental workload under stressful working conditions. Length: 26 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level, check out the Situational Awareness Matters Online

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