Q. Why is that the law requires that a driver of a vehicle can only use their mobile phone if using it hands-free?

A. Because safety demands a driver devote as much attention to driving as possible. 

Multitasking is not a real thing.

In theory, we have the potential to devote 100% focus to a task. But that’s just a single task. We can’t give 100% to more than a single task. We might be able to give 70% to one task and 20% to a second task and 10% to a third task. But never 100% to more than one task. 

I have met a lot of people who believe they are really good at multitasking. They believe they can perform two or more jobs with equal attention.

Of course, it’s not true. But people believe it is true.

We only have so much conscious focus our brains can commit to. If you are doing a single task you could argue that it has 100% of your attention. But nobody does a single task and nobody commits 100%. We all think we focus 100% on the primary task. But we don’t. We leave some focus for other less important tasks like being aware of our hunger or how hot it is or what the time is. Nobody gives all their attention to only one thing. When we say we are good at multitasking we really mean we are good at allocating the majority of our concentration to the most important task and dividing smaller amounts of concentration to the lesser tasks.

The same is true of horses. They never give 100% of their attention to just one thing. They divide and allocate their attention to tasks according to their position of importance. It’s a pyramid of attentiveness with the primary focus being on the most important job and the one a horse is putting the most effort into achieving, But it also gives some focus to secondary and tertiary tasks. The amount of focus it commits will depend on where those jobs sit in the order of priority. That requires a horse’s focus on one thing to never be 100%.

I want you to remember the word “priority”. It’s a very important.

You’ll often see someone standing around with their horse and telling their horse to not look over there or to not sniff the ground or not shift its feet, while the handler is talking to somebody or fiddling with gear, etc. They are not asking their horse to do anything, they are just asking their horse NOT to do anything.

The internet is chock full of videos of professional and non-professional trainers describing with boastful pride how to train a horse, while at the same time incessantly picking on their horse for every little infraction of not looking like an equine mannequin in a shop window. I sometimes see it with first-time clinic goers while they tell me about their horse. The horse looks away - they pull with the lead rope to stop them. The horse puts its nose on the ground - another pull. The horse takes a step - yet another pull. This is perhaps one of the most effective ways to teach a horse to disconnect from and avoid their human.

When I ask people that come to my clinics why they pick on their horse they almost always say it is to get its attention back to them. They assume that because their horse is giving some attention to something else and not 100% to them, their horse is not paying any attention. However, they can’t know that without asking their horse a question.

Let’s go back to the idea of priority. 

If I am standing around talking to a camera or a friend and not asking anything of my horse except to not wander away, there is no reason for a horse to devote a huge amount of focus to me. It can do that simple task with maybe 20% of its concentration. I’m giving my horse 20% of my attention and it is giving me 20% of its attention. I’m a secondary thought to my horse and my horse is a secondary thought to me. That gives it 80% to think about other things. I don’t yet need it to stand perfectly still and stare intensely at me, not sniff the ground and not look at the other horses. I don’t need it to stand at attention, not blinking or looking at anything else because I don’t have a question for it yet. I just need enough focus that it does not wander away and is available to switch to giving me 80% of its focus when I present a question or job.I do need my rose ready when I ask it a question, but I don’t need it shutting out the rest of the world when I am asking nothing of it. That would be crazy and a quick way to get my horse to dread being around me

Telling a horse what it can’t do creates deep anxiety because there is no clarity explaining what it can do. This is so important to understand.

We say, “Don’t sniff the ground”, but we don’t say what it can do. We leave the horse still with 80% of its focus looking for something to do or think about that won’t incur a jab with the lead rope. 

A better alternative would be to either leave the horse alone while we only require 20% of its attention. And then transition to being the primary focus by directing its thought to perform a job. In that way, we give meaning and clarity to the pressure and feel we apply when we do something with the lead rope. Instead of just saying “Don’t do that”, we shift priority to being the primary focus by saying “Can you please do this instead?” 

For me, when my horse sniffs the ground while standing next to me, I just leave it alone. 

But if I don’t want my horse to sniff the ground, instead of pulling its head up, I’ll ask it to walk with me a few steps or take a few steps back or I might ask it to pick up a foot or to direct its attention to another horse or give it a scratch in its favourite itchy spot. I’ll do something to redirect its focus. I won’t just block the focus it had. I will give it a reason to have a new focus. In that way, we are still working together and connecting.

I could fill a book with examples of how we misunderstand how focus works and how we misuse it. But the two important points I want to make are: multitasking, in the sense of giving equal attention to more than one task, is not a real thing; and we need to learn how to help a horse prioritise what it focuses on.