We live and work in a world of ever-increasing distraction… Email, text messaging, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook – they all call out for our attention. Unmanaged, they represent constant interruptions with obvious impacts on productivity.
Consider that it takes anywhere from a few minutes to over 10 minutes to recover from an interruption (depending on who you ask). And multi-tasking isn’t the answer either. John Medina points out in his book Brain Rules that “Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth.” Articles in the WSJ and on NPR agree.
If you are looking for opportunities to increase productivity (your own or your employees), start by dealing with the distraction factors. There are thousands of great books on time management written by people a lot smarter than me. But the one thing that I am convinced is guaranteed to increase productivity is:
Create periods of undistracted time when you turn all this stuff off and focus on important projects (or people) – or simply take that time to think…
In my opinion if you can do this one thing consistently, you will be way ahead of the game.
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