By TANIA OLIVARES
Staff Writer
In this article I read called “Listening Is an Overlooked Tool,” it discusses how when asking a frequently asked question, the author’s team often has a better answer than herself. Studies have shown that we spend anywhere from a third to half of our time listening but we don’t retain very much and another study found that listeners only remembered about half of what they listened to after someone finished talking. Listening can be a very difficult skill to master and they developed three levels of listening which include internal, focused, and 360 listening. Internal listening is focusing on your thoughts while focused listening is focusing on the other person but not fully connecting to them. 360 listening is another step to focused listening but you’re focused on how they’re saying stuff and what they’re not saying. Improving your listening is also important which can be done by looking people in the eye while listening or talking, managing time and having time for yourself to reflect throughout the day and asking more questions. Overall, anyone can improve in listening just a little bit more and the different levels of listening can help do that.