Learn To Sit Back and Observe. Not Everything Need – Tymoff
We use our observation skills in countless situations every day. Whether we are hearing, smelling, touching, tasting or seeing something, we gain valuable information about the world around us, which is called observation.
What is observation?
Observation is the act of watching or examining an incident, phenomenon or change to gather information or better understand it. Observation can be done through the use of senses such as sight, hearing, touch and smell to observe and note events, behaviors, expressions and other elements in the environment around. Observation can also be applied in many fields, including science, research, education, and everyday life to gather information and better understand the world around us.
What are observation skills?
Observation skills are the ability to perceive and analyze objects and phenomena in the surrounding environment to draw accurate conclusions about a certain problem or situation. This is an important and necessary skill in many professions and people’s daily lives.
Different from simply looking or seeing, observation is the act of focusing on a certain purpose with clear intention. Besides each person’s vision and personality, observation ability can be trained and improved over time.
For example:
In everyday life
If a talkative person becomes quiet and withdrawn, use your observation skills to draw conclusions based on this sudden contrast. The person may be tired or distracted by some other matter. Observing this change, we can know how to behave more appropriately, either by giving them private space, or by thoughtfully asking and encouraging them.
Health
Observation skills help doctors easily recognize patient symptoms, observe wounds, pathological signs, physiological indicators,… to make accurate diagnoses and decisions on treatment. treatment method.
Education industry
Teachers with good observation skills will easily recognize the potential or problems that students are facing. From there, they can come up with appropriate teaching methods and promptly solve other problems.
The importance of observation skills
Observation skills play an important role and are an indispensable part of human daily behavior. The importance and necessity of this skill include:
- Detect the problem
- Make more accurate decisions
- Develop creativity
- Improve communication skills
- To build a relationship
- Adapt to change
- Detect the problem
When observing problems and objects meticulously, we can easily detect flaws or small details that cause serious impacts. Thanks to that, we can proactively come up with solutions to resolve and avoid unwanted situations from occurring.
Make more accurate decisions
Good observation skills help us collect information in detail, this helps us better understand the situation and problem we are facing, contributing to making more accurate solution decisions.
Develop creativity
The skill of carefully observing a situation allows us to discover creative approaches to solve problems or promote growth. At the same time, it also helps us be more sensitive to events taking place around us, thereby being able to promptly assess and respond to situations.
Improve communication skills
Observation skills also contribute to improving communication skills. For example, at work, when we observe the characteristics, personalities, and interests of our colleagues, we can easily know how to approach and communicate better with them.
To build a relationship
Observation skills help us build better relationships. Thanks to our ability to understand other people’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors through observation, we can interact and communicate more effectively.
Adapt to change
Observation skills help each person easily recognize trends and changes in the surrounding environment. This allows us to update and adjust our behavior and improve our skills to adapt to that change.
The role of observation skills at work
- Increasing productivity
- Improve product/service quality
- Solve problems flexibly
- Promotion opportunities
Increasing productivity
At work, observation skills play a positive role in improving work productivity, by:
- Find, analyze and handle problems flexibly and effectively
- Enhance the ability to concentrate and optimize the working process
- Detect errors during work implementation, so that you can respond and correct them promptly
- Receive necessary information to solve problems quickly and effectively, and can also resolve conflicts at work.
Improve product/service quality
Observation skills contribute to the process of improving the quality of products/services of businesses, including:
- Detect and correct errors during production or service provision to customers
- Understand customer and market needs over time, thereby helping to develop products/services that suit the market’s tastes.
- Evaluate customer satisfaction or attitude about products/services. Thanks to that, necessary improvements can be made to improve quality.
- Create a synergistic working environment, encourage staff to work together to improve product/service quality, towards the common goals of the organization.
Solve problems flexibly
Observation skills also help each individual recognize problems and flexibly respond to urgent issues, including:
- Detect the cause of the problem through signs, situations, and feelings during work implementation, so that it can be prevented or handled early.
- Understand the situation and related factors so that you can come up with appropriate solutions to overcome the problem.
- Evaluate and find weaknesses in the process of solving work problems. From there, it helps to come up with reasonable plans to train, improve, increase performance and improve work quality.
Promotion opportunities
The ability to observe helps employees become more professional in solving business problems and crises. This helps them be highly appreciated by their superiors. It can be seen that good observation skills contribute greatly to creating advancement opportunities for each individual.
Some elements demonstrate good observation skills
- Observation skills in communication
- Critical thinking
- Emotional intelligence
- Pay attention to small details
- Observation skills in communication
One of the important aspects of effective communication is the ability to listen. When we possess this skill, we can focus on the other person, observe how they speak and understand the message they want to convey, and respond appropriately and thoughtfully.
Pay attention to the other person’s non-verbal communications, such as facial expressions, voice, gestures, etc. To know how to behave appropriately and make the other person feel respected. Besides, when we have good observation skills, we can ensure more accurate and effective communication.
Critical thinking
When we have good observation ability, we can easily collect information meticulously, analyze different aspects of the problem and make well-founded conclusions.
Observation skills help focus on important details and information, while critical thinking helps evaluate, analyze, and draw well-founded conclusions from that information. Therefore, good observation skills have a significant impact on each person’s critical thinking.
Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to evaluate and regulate emotions as well as understand and empathize with the emotions of others. This ability helps connect with meaningful relationships and is also a tool for effective observation. By identifying the emotional state of others, we can know how to react and behave with them appropriately.
Pay attention to small details
Attention to small details is the ability to approach and complete tasks thoroughly and accurately. This skill plays an important part in increasing productivity and helps to observe more effectively. Through paying attention to small details, we can detect hidden problems or the overall message of the company. some object.
How to practice observation skills
- Analysis
- Open
- Multi-sensory combination
- Pay attention to small details
- Slow down
- Concentrate
- Do not judge subjectively
Analysis
To practice effective observation skills, it is necessary to accurately analyze and evaluate information to better understand the problem or situation that is occurring.
When analyzing, try to focus on small details, learn about interrelated factors, and find important information to better understand the current situation.
Open
Being open before observing means always having faith that there is much we can learn and absorb from the world around us. When we observe with an open mind, we can achieve more positive results.
Multi-sensory combination
Use more senses than just your eyes when observing, such as your ears, nose, heart or fingers to touch, this helps them feel more deeply into every detail and give feedback. appropriate inferences about that situation or problem.
Pay attention to small details
Large details are easy to detect and observe, but paying attention to small details will help us improve our observation skills.
A simple example is when observing a painting, small details such as color, light, lines and size can yield a lot of information about that painting. If we only focus on the big details and ignore the small details, we will miss a lot of important information and cannot understand the full message of the picture.
As we become more skilled at observing small details, we will be able to better understand and make more accurate inferences about the situations or objects we are observing.
Slow down
It will be difficult to observe everything in detail if we are always in a hurry. To be well-trained, observation skills require us to have time to look, analyze and feel.
Therefore, try to get into the habit of slowing down, this does not mean trying to do everything slowly and for a long time. It’s about trying to focus on each action carefully and slowly.
Concentrate
Observation skills are only well-trained at a time when we are not distracted by anything else outside. Try to concentrate when observing to get detailed, complete and necessary information.
Over time, the skill of observing by focusing properly will help us become a sharp, agile observer.
Do not judge subjectively
Observation skills require each individual to focus on reality, pay attention to well-founded information and facts and not be influenced by personal opinions, emotions or thoughts.
Subjective evaluation and judgment demonstrate unprofessionalism when solving problems, and lead to making wrong decisions, especially for people working in the fields of health, construction, etc…
4 Observation skills exercises that need to be practiced
- Observe your eyes
- Observe facial expressions
- Observe your breathing
- Observe body movements
I. Observe your eyes
A study has shown that we are attracted to our eyes since we were children. Babies often try to look at adults’ eyes instead of other movements. Therefore, it can be said that eyes are the spice of communication.
However, to truly understand and quickly recognize the other person’s mood, we need to combine it with observation skills. Each person has a different message conveyed through their eyes. Therefore, it is necessary to observe very delicately and carefully every detail to deeply understand the other person.
II. Observe facial expressions
Facial expressions are probably the most easily recognizable emotions of the other person. We can tell if a person is happy, cheerful, sad, anxious or annoyed through facial expressions.
Therefore, practicing observation skills through facial expressions is considered the easiest way to know the other person’s mood, from which to behave appropriately.
III. Observe breathing patterns
Sometimes we unconsciously express our mood through our breathing. Therefore, this is also a factor to practice observation skills in recognizing the other person’s mood.
If your partner’s breathing rate increases, it could be because they are stressed, worried, or scared about something. If the breathing is somewhat heavy, the other person may be tired.
IV. Observe body movements
Gestures and body actions are a non-verbal way of communication that requires observation skills to understand. This helps us easily recognize the feelings, thoughts and problems that the other person is facing.
Each person has a signal in each different body gesture. Therefore, a good observation skill will help us recognize the meaning of the other person’s gesture.
Exercise the skill of observing the opponent’s body gestures
Observation skills are one of the important skills to have and should be practiced every day. Although it may take a long time to practice excellence, mastering the skill of observation will bring many opportunities, especially in career goals. At the same time, it helps a person to always be ready to deal with any situation in life.
Read More: Shared Joy is A Double Joy; Shared Sorrow is Tymoff