Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice said, “The court has looked at a number of available options. Frankly, all of them are lousy.”  http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9TUCGK80.htm

For more information:

http://www.saljournal.com/news/story/court-4-4-12

http://www.dodgeglobe.com/features/x760621708/Supreme-Court-orders-employee-furloughs

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/05/3535546/budget-woes-force-kansas-court.html

http://www.kansasreporter.org/91300.aspx

A judges ability to concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of others ought to be the norm on the bench. But for variety of reasons it sometimes is not the practice. There are forms to fill out. There are notes to be taken and occasionally there is just plain multi tasking: a quick e mail to a clerk, a check of the calendar to see what is on for the afternnon.  And then there is Selective attention which  provides a way for us to navigate through the maze of data that comes our way every second of the day.

We can:

• Tune our ears – as  a mother reacting to a baby’s crying in the middle of the night,
• Focus our vision – as parents do to  find your child’s face in a large crowd,

• Latch onto an idea to the exclusion of others – this is the best way to get this done.

By selectively attending we can get a number of things done.

We can also miss a lot of things, too.  Take a look at the following from Christopher Chabris and Daniel J. Simons.

Focus on counting the number of passes between team members with white shirts.  Bounce passes count, too:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY

Well, how did you do? What did you attend to and what did you disregard or minimize? What does this tell us about the wisdon of multi tasking on the bench?