Attention To Details
Oct 2021 - Updated Mar 2023
The key is execution. Problem solving and planning matter, but without strong execution they amount to nothing. Driving a solution forward and executing an action successfully requires sustained attention to detail. You have to listen to what the chaos is telling you, what the available information is actually showing you, what the team and others around you are saying, and most importantly, what the situation on the ground is demanding. Miss the details and failure becomes the default outcome. Hope and luck are not plans.
It takes real discipline to keep paying attention once your mind shifts into the I’ve got this, let’s go mode. Ironically, that moment of confidence is exactly when you need to stop, slow down, and observe. Look at the whole picture, then look at your notes, and compare the two. Do they align? How does your mental model of the situation differ from what is directly in front of you?
“One of the ideas that pops up in almost every lesson in military training is that extreme attention to detail matters. That in every situation, focused and unbroken awareness matters. That, in the worst cases, is the difference between life and death. And so this level of attention to detail is stressed at every turn.”— Patrick Rhone
Listening with intent, reading with purpose, and identifying the elements that truly matter to execution all require deliberate action. Repetition allows simplification. Simplification frees cognitive space. That space is what lets you focus on the details that actually matter when execution begins.
Pay attention, details matter, more than you think.
Why? Read On...
Standing in a loose semi circle, we listened as the sergeant read out what the next seventy two hours would bring. This was the tail end of advanced training, and passing this evolution, along with a few other “missions,” was required if we wanted to make it to the unit we were volunteering for.
He read what felt like an entire book. Objectives we needed to accomplish, things we needed to observe, terrain we needed to navigate, and the enemy forces we were likely to encounter along the way. He covered required equipment and, as always, reminded us to keep our pockets closed.
Yes, pockets. From the early days of basic training we were told to keep them closed. Pants, shirts, jackets, every button done. Collective punishment for a single open pocket was legendary. Once, we ran five miles to the back of the command’s main building, where a massive green trash container waited for us. It weighed hundreds of pounds and smelled like rotten fish baking in the summer heat. That container became our best friend. We carried it, together, to every building on base. No breaks. No shortcuts. Five hours later, we were done. None of us fully understood the sergeant’s obsession with pockets, but the lesson stuck. We made damn sure ours were closed.
At the end of the brief, the sergeant shut his notebook, looked at us, and spoke slowly and deliberately.
“Do not forget your water. Do not forget your personal trauma kit. Do not forget your compass. Do not forget your personal map. Pay attention to what I just said. Keep those items at the front of your mind. Do not forget them. And keep your pockets closed.”
We were exhausted. Months of training, constant pressure, one hundred degree heat, full kit. Mentally drained. What more did this guy want from us? I listened, but only enough to retain a few key points, assuming someone else would remember the rest.
That night my ruck was packed and ready, but as I walked to link up for insertion, a nagging feeling crept in. Something felt off. Like I was forgetting something important. Too late now. I hoped I had what I needed.
Of course, we all forgot something.
The mission went poorly. We failed basic tasks and blamed it on a lack of information. In reality, several of us showed up without items the sergeant explicitly told us we would need. Things spiraled. We narrowly avoided injuries. Luck did more work than skill.
During the after action review, the sergeant made his disappointment very clear. He wasn’t angry about mistakes. He was angry that we hadn’t paid attention, assuming that because this was training, things couldn’t truly go wrong.
“Lack of information?” he said. “I gave you everything you needed. I listed the kit. I told you how to pack it. I told you what not to forget. Did you check the team kit before you ate? Did you check your personal kit? Did you check each other?” Silence. “I didn’t think so. Oh, and thank that guy over there. You’re all going for a run instead of getting food and a shower. His pocket is open. Go.”
And we ran. Miles. Full kit. Rucks and rifles still on.
All we had to do was pay attention to the brief. He was right. He gave us everything we needed. We failed him, and more importantly, we failed ourselves. Had this been a real mission, some of us would not have come back. If the mission had been to rescue someone, or prevent an attack, the consequences would have been catastrophic. That realization hit hard. Details matter. There is a reason they matter.
We learned.
From that point on, we took notes. Before rest or food, we prepared the team kit. Then personal kit. Then we checked each other. It became instinct, just like closing our pockets. That discipline saved our lives on a later mission. Attention to detail gave us the space to improvise and extract ourselves from a situation that could have ended very differently.
Details matter.
And the pockets? Think about it. When you build the habit of closing them, you force your mind to pay attention. That attention compounds. It becomes discipline. And discipline is what carries you through when it actually counts.