Why is attention to detail so important?

A famous quote goes like this: “It is attention in the detail that makes the difference between average and stunning.”

This quote leads to the rhetorical question: Who wouldn’t like to be stunning, rather than average?!

The definition of “attention to detail” is as follows: Attention to detail is the ability to accomplish or complete a task while demonstrating a thorough concern for all the areas involved, no matter how small.

It is wise to always remember that in any significant task, the tiniest details are important.

Paying attention to detail means monitoring and checking work or information, while organizing your time and resources efficiently.

Picture a pilot who concentrates intensely to land an aircraft. Whilst doing this, the pilot is immune to distraction. This is an excellent example of paying attention to detail.

You can train yourself to be better at paying attention to detail.

This is how:

  1. Walk to a place where you normally would not go. Look at everything around you and describe it to yourself.
  2. Read regularly.
  3. Take frequent breaks observing what is visible, and what is happening around you.
  4. Put your phone away and concentrate on your surroundings and on people, rather than a device.
  5. Play games like I spy with my little eye. *
  6. Compliment others often; in order to do this you will have to pay attention to what people say, do and wear.
  7. Break goals into smaller pieces.

Once you have developed attention to detail skills, you will become more productive as well as more efficient, and you will perform better.

When listing your skills on your curriculum vitae, include that you are detail-oriented. Don’t neglect to be specific about what you have done to prove that you are detail-oriented.

Attention to detail is a very important soft skill (soft skills are skills relating to how you work) – together with communication and problem-solving – held in high esteem by many companies.

Think it over:

A person’s accomplishments in life are the cumulative effects of their attention to detail.

When you pay attention to detail, the big picture will take care of itself.

It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.

* I spy is a guessing game where one player (the spy or it) chooses an object within sight and announces to the other players that “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with…“, naming the first letter of the object. Other players attempt to guess this object. The game of I spy teaches you to be more observant about the world around you, as well as to pay more attention to detail.