A recent article “Are digital distractions harming labour productivity?” in The Economist started:
“For many it is a reflex as unconscious as breathing. Hit a stumbling-block during an important task (like writing an article)? The hand reaches for the phone and opens the social network of choice. A blur of time passes, and half an hour or more of what ought to have been productive effort is gone. A feeling of regret is quickly displaced by the urge to see what happened on Twitter in the past 15 seconds. Distraction is a constant these days; supplying it is the business model of some of the world’s most powerful firms.”
While most of us with financial or administrative functions in the Army do not write articles, we all know how easy it is to be distracted from the task at hand, especially by e-mails, text messages, voice mail or web browsing. And it isn’t just the time taken for these functions that is costly: research has shown that it takes an average of 23 minutes for a person to fully regain focus on a task after being distracted.
Many suggestions have been offered for minimizing the effects of distractions. One of the most common is to set aside one or two periods a day to review and respond to e-mails, text messages and voice mails, preferably at times when you are not at your best – perhaps early in the day, if you are not a “morning person,” or before you break for lunch. If you are expecting an urgent message, check for it more often, but defer dealing with other business messages until your scheduled time, and leave most personal messages until the evening.
Of course, colleagues can also distract. If you avoid making eye contact with the person who walks past your desk, they are less likely to stop to chat; if you have your own office, closing the door usually indicates that you don’t want to be disturbed. In his Money & Mission article about the reorganization of the Finance department (December 6, 2017), Paul Goodyear noted “Many staff members regularly work off-site, and we encourage this because studies have shown that it results in higher productivity.”
Of course, interacting with colleagues and answering e-mails are every bit as important to the job we do as anything else; the challenge is to manage these potential distractions so that they do not prevent us from accomplishing important work that requires thought and concentration. Avoiding them is not the answer, but planning when to allow them to have your attention is key to getting other important work accomplished.
