How To Focus Despite Distractions
Each day employees spend 56 minutes on their smartphones and 42 minutes on personal tasks — That’s 20% of each workday wasted on distractions. If you want to sharpen your focus, trying products like CBD Oil might be worth a shot.
Modern Workplaces
- Culture of Distraction?
- 99% of employees say they are distracted daily
- The office makes these hard to do
- Video conferences 93%
- Phone calls 51%
- The office makes these hard to do
- 99% of employees say they are distracted daily
- Why We Can’t Focus
- Sleep deprivation
- Multitasking
- Stress
- Busy environment
- Generational Divide
- Gen Z respondents are most productive when working with others
- BUT 74% of all Gen Z and Millennials are distracted at work
- 69% admit that their smartphone is one of the biggest distractions
- BUT 74% of all Gen Z and Millennials are distracted at work
- BUT Baby Boomers feel more productive in a quiet space with less going on
- 3X as many Boomers* are unable to concentrate in an open office
- Gen Z respondents are most productive when working with others
- Wasted Time
- 84% of workers believe they can refocus in under 30 minutes
- BUT even tiny interruptions increase your chances of making a mistake
- Due to coronavirus, many are working remotely for the first time
- Over 50% are worried about the household distracting from their work
- 84% of workers believe they can refocus in under 30 minutes
We’re up against internal and external challenges when it comes to overcoming distractions
The Lost Art of Concentration
- Wired for Distraction
- Popular games & apps were designed to change our behaviors
- AND human minds are designed for continuous distraction
- In a study conducted with 2,250 adults
- At any moment, 47% reported their mind was wandering
- Popular games & apps were designed to change our behaviors
- Inability to Focus
- Mind-wandering is so natural that often we don’t even notice it happening
- According to a study by Microsoft Canada
- Our average attention span in 2008: 12 seconds
- By 2013: 8 seconds
- 1 second less than a goldfish
- The Role of Sleep
- According to the CDC
- Adults need at least 7 hours of sleep nightly
- BUT 1 in 3 Americans adults sleep less than the recommended hours
- Continued lack of sleep could destroy our brain cells
- According to The Journal of Neuroscience, when mice are deprived of sleep neurons in their brains begin to die
- According to the CDC
If we can’t change how our brains work or where we work, how do we get ahead of distractions before they happen?
Optimize Your Work Environment
- Start Here
- Turn off notifications
- While they might seem to be momentary distractions, notifications
- Disrupt our thoughts for much longer
- Make it difficult to get back on track
- While they might seem to be momentary distractions, notifications
- Cut down on email
- Americans spend much of their day checking emails
- Work 3+ hours
- Personal 2+ hours
- Just 3 of every 26 minutes spent responding to email are job-related
- Americans spend much of their day checking emails
- List out tasks
- Write down and rank your tasks by important to not important
- This will help you
- Focus on what is most urgent
- Avoid wasting time
- Take breaks
- Look away from your screen to rest your eyes
- Take a 15-minute break for every 2 hours staring at your screen
- “Heavy multi-screeners find it difficult to filter out irrelevant stimuli — they’re more easily distracted by multiple streams of media” – Microsoft 2015 study
- Look away from your screen to rest your eyes
- Turn off notifications
Even a simple routine can help clear our minds ㅡ Tim Ferriss, author of The 4 Hour Work Week, recommends eating the same meal for lunch every day. You can also try dantes inferno strain and see if it helps you focus.
- Tech To Help Focus Like The Pros
- Freedom.to
- Set up a list of websites and apps that can be distracting
- Schedule time each day and Freedom will block access
- Trello
- Use lists of tasks and separate projects by board to keep track of projects
- Minimize notifications and only see updates for what you need to know
- Noisli
- Custom background sound to drown out unpleasant noises
- Mix different sounds and create a personalized atmosphere
- Freedom.to
What does focus mean? It means to pay attention.
Sources:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-successful-people-ea_b_11164158
https://money.com/cell-phone-alert-productivity/
http://www.danielgilbert.com/KILLINGSWORTH%20&%20GILBERT%20(2010).pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/data_statistics.html
https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/
https://blog.trello.com/why-you-cant-focus-on-anything-plus-how-to-fix-it
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/brief-interruptions-spawn-errors/
https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/workplace-distractions-types/
https://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/chi08-mark.pdf
https://www.slideshare.net/adobe/2019-adobe-email-usage-study