“Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.” - Adam Hochschil
Some people say that life had so many less distractions when apple and blackberry were just fruits. Tools such as Facebook, twitter and YouTube can either be a robust mechanism for social marketing, or a faddish distraction useful for only exchanging trivial information. It all depends on the user. The best way to stay focused on your goals is to manage your distractions instead of letting them manage you.
There are many different types of distractions: from background noises to entertainment, to not being in the mood to work. the first two can be solved by a simple change of scenery, but the third is more complex and requires a change in mindset.
In a 2013 interview with Forbes, career experts Phyllis Mufson, Andy Teach, and Meredith Haberfeld suggested multiple ways to manage distractions.
“At work just as in life, distractions are par for the course. The key point is how well you manage them,” said Haberfeld.
The main aim is to limit those distractions as much as possible. However, Teach believes occasional workplace distractions can actually be a good thing. “We’d all get burnt out pretty quickly if we didn’t get distracted from time to time and take our minds off of work. The danger, however, is when distractions take up too much of our time and prevent us from getting our work done.” he said. This is true, considering how an average adult can concentrate on something continuously for forty minutes straight, but we are expected to work for at least eight hours a day.
If interruptions are not managed, they can seriously erode your ability to focus and may lead to mistakes, delays, poor judgment and ultimately poor performance.
Frequent distractions can also negatively affect your mood, because they can prevent you from getting your work done on time, which creates more stress for you and consequently makes you more frustrated and unhappy with your work.
According to Muffson, happiness largely comes from feeling that you are doing a good job at work that has meaning to you, and seeing positive results from your efforts. It takes great skill and focus to produce high-quality work at the top of your game. Distractions can decrease focus, increase stress, and intensify any poor work habit you may have.
Distractions can provoke all of the issues that lead to poor performance, forming a negative spiral where poor performance leads to more stress which leads to more poor performance, and so on. Though the frequency and nature of distractions depends on your line of work, and the environment, among other things, there are a number of common disruptions that many of us endure.
If you regularly lose focus because of distractions, there are a few things the experts suggest you can do:
Manage your time and space.
Reserve regular blocks of time for tasks that require concentration. Try using the first hour of work to make headway in your most difficult project. Ask those around you for quiet time, and if that is not possible, take your work into a private study, workshop or other quiet space. Make a conscious effort to set the mood for you to work. Whether it is listening to your favorite music or repeating a few affirmations, use it to enter the right state of mind to tackle the job.
Limit technology interruptions.
Spending a few minutes each day checking personal e-mail, updating your personal profile, handling an online bank transaction, texting or playing video games is not a problem, but doing any of these in excess will distract you from your work. Put your phone on silent, close browser tabs that are irrelevant to your work, put your gadgets aside, turn the television or console off. Do whatever it takes to limit technological distractions, and reward yourself with an episode, stage level or browsing session when you’re done.
Organize your workspace to minimize visual distractions.
Muffson suggests having a tray for incoming work and keeping only the project you are working on now in front of you. Be like a racehorse, with blinders on both sides, focused on the job at hand. Nothing else matters besides whatever’s laying in front of you.
Learn self-management skills.
“Peoples’ work styles are different. Some of us are naturally more distractible, or more social, or more physically restless. Rather than beating yourself up for your lack of focus, experiment to learn what works for you.” , Mufson says.
We all have different personalities and personal styles; some people are task-oriented whereas others are people-oriented. Task oriented people focus mostly on the job at hand, whereas people-oriented individuals form relationships along the way. You can also be a structured (administrative\rigid) or unstructured (more flexible) individual.
Therefore, there are four personal styles: people-structured, people-unstructured, task-structured and task-unstructured. There is no right or wrong personal style; what matters is knowing where you stand and working around it to find what works for you. For example, a people-unstructured person can have a flexible workflow, make friends along the way and still get the job done in time If they restrict their communication to key stakeholders and win over allies who can help lighten the workload.
Make a plan to minimize distractions.
Haberfeld says that you should pick your top two distractions and give two weeks attention to keeping them high on your radar and resolving them. “Create a strategy and keep honing it as you see what works and what doesn’t.”
Make others aware of your plan.
If you are prone to self-distraction, ask a friend to have a designated check-in time each week to go over your progress. Letting others know about your strategy to minimize distractions will help you stay focused. Having accountability to someone else motivates you to focus to avoid looking incompetent.
Take action.
If your day is riddled with people walking over to meet with you at their convenience, Haberfeld says, get the friendly word out that you’re setting up designated office hours for walk-ins.
Take care of your health.
Get enough sleep! Lack of sleep makes you tired, irritable, and erodes your ability to focus, Mufson says. Drink water and stay hydrated. Being even a little dehydrated will make you feel tired and sluggish—and possibly more susceptible to distractions. Take good care of yourself, because sickness is a major distraction, and one that can go on for an unforeseeable amount of time. A cold, a fever or even the slightest headache can throw you off your game, so you owe it to yourself and your goals to stay healthy.
Finally, every day, make time to reflect. Take time at the end of the day to think back on your day and what you want to focus on tomorrow. Write your priorities for the next day and review your list when you come in. Remember: business before pleasure.