Living in a world of constant distraction

Of course, you want to do great work. To deeply enjoy the activities you choose to take part in. Unfortunately, we live in a constant state of distraction. Social media, technology and notifications have led us to lose all sense of focus. By drawing away our attention, distractions take up limited cognitive resources. This leads to lower quality work, longer project timelines, and being overwhelmed and burnt out. However, you can overcome these distractions quite simply. We’ll chat about that later.

First, it comes as no surprise that the amount of distractions has multiplied greatly — fuelled by the internet, smartphones and now ChatGPT. We can't control the amount of information that comes at us. We can only control how we respond to it. How we manage it.

Being distracted is easier than being focused. It's easy to stop what you're doing and look at that email. Or check that text. When we do this, we decide to stop doing what we're supposed to do. We're breaking the promise we've made to ourselves to get this piece of work done. Or enjoy this activity that we're doing.

The negative effects of being distracted are two-fold.

First, the thing we're supposed to be doing gets pushed aside. We de-prioritize it. It takes longer to complete, and we'll have to return to it later. By not completing tasks we add more to our future workload.

Second, the thing that we're thinking about starting, isn't completely focussed on. We’re not doing it as effectively as we could. We're likely not in a proper state of mind to solve this problem either since we don't have the information we need readily available.

We see this all the time. People are working on one or two small projects but never finish them. Yet, these same people are always busy. They work longer hours, over lunch and into the evening to "find time" to get things done. They're the people who have 50 tabs open and hundreds of emails unread. They're always “multitasking” — or task switching — and therefore never finishing anything.

Costs of task switching

Frequent task switching can waste up to 40% of your productivity. When multitasking, or task switching, you raise the likeliness of making mistakes. It also takes a toll on your mental load, causing you to tire more easily. 

Consider driving a car. It's more efficient when driving on the highway. It doesn't have to start, stop, or gain speed every few kilometres. It cruises. It flows.

Your brain functions the same way.

When you're distracted, it's like driving downtown at 5:00 pm. Stop and go, stop and go. Inefficient. But when you're focused — not distracted by the constant influx of incoming information — you get higher quality work done easily.

Choosing focus

It’s clear why focused people get much more high-quality work done.

To choose focus we need to first understand what is distracting us. The typical suspects are likely emails, notifications, untidy workspaces, or other people.

Spend some time understanding what is causing you to lose focus. You should identify what tugs at your attention and causes you to switch between what you need to be working on, and what distracts you.

Once you have an understanding, you can start to groom those distractions. Reducing the non-essential ones, and planning for the essential ones. Creating an awareness around distraction will allow you to move toward a more focused life.

How to remain focussed

1. Work on your most important tasks first. Identify at the start of each day the one big thing you want to accomplish during that one day. Do this first. You will find that you are more relaxed as the day goes on. You will not feel the anxious drive to do more and more and more, and it will be easier to resist multi-tasking.
2. Leave blank spaces. You have to make time for blank spaces in your day. You need to have time in your day when you are doing "nothing" as far as your brain is concerned. Not talking, not reading, not writing. Go for a walk, get exercise, listen to music, or stare into space. The more blank space the more work you will get done! Multi-tasking is the enemy of blank space.
3. Fully complete tasks before moving on to the next one. This keeps your mind focused and helps you do better work faster without getting stressed. Multitasking might seem efficient, but research shows it diminishes productivity and increases errors. Each time you switch between tasks, your brain must refocus, which can waste valuable time and mental energy.
4. Close tabs, email, and IM. This way, you can focus better on your work without constant interruptions. Reducing distractions helps you get tasks done more quickly and with fewer mistakes.

Build this muscle and flex it when necessary.

If you can't focus on the work that needs to be done in your business, get in touch. We work with small business owners to focus on what matters.