Whether you are a manager, a senior employee or a fresh entrant, distractions can hamper anyone’s growth. There is no way you can eliminate them because we don’t live in a vacuum.
If you want to take control of your time and advance your career, then it is essential that you learn to work your way around the unavoidable interruptions. However, it is hard to stay focused when you don’t know what is keeping you from being as productive as you can be. The following are the most common distractions that might be affecting your performance at the office.
What Distracts You?
A Bit of a Chit Chat
Waving to a colleague passing by your desk or stopping to greet someone on your way to grabbing the required file are a just few examples of how easily socializing can sideline your focus. You might have intended to just say ‘hi’ but the addressee might ask you how your day was going and before you know it you have lost ten or more minutes just complaining about the workload and everything that needs to be done.
Technical Interruptions
Promotional messages, emails, and notifications from social media websites are some of the technical interruptions that distract you from the task at hand. Online activities that are not related to your work such as checking your Facebook newsfeed and Instagram stories or reading the latest post from the blogger you religiously follow are habits that must be curtailed if you want to boost productivity.
Stress
It is common for workers to lose a significant amount of their time worrying about different matters related to both, their personal and professional life. Everyone has their fair share of problems, but the key is to not let them get in the way of your success. By stressing over things, you only harm your own self as you lose precious time that could have instead been utilized doing something useful to solve those problems.
Besides these interruptions, there might be other factors distracting you at work. Analyze and evaluate what they might be and think of ways in which you can minimize them. Socializing and taking a short break is not really prohibited, in fact, it is actually recommended. But what you must ensure is that they don’t take too long as that will decrease your productivity and cost you your valuable time.
How to Curtail Distractions?
Curtailing distractions is surely not an easy task but it is not impossible either. By following some basic tips such as those given below, you can control the disturbances that affect your work performance and make more effective and more efficient use of your time by boosting productivity.
Overcoming the Problem of Chit Chat
If you easily get swayed away from work due to socializing with other office mates, then the easiest way to overcome this problem is to invite them to join your mission of increasing personal and professional productivity.
Encourage them to discuss personal matters only during the official break and ask them to remind one another if an occasional ‘hi, hello’ exceeds more than five minutes. If you don’t feel like publicizing your goal of improving productivity or if others don’t seem to join, then you must be confident enough to follow this step on your own.
Overcoming the Disturbance from Technical Interruptions
Phone, emails, notifications, etc – you might not be able to silence them due to work requirements, but you can surely control how much they affect your productivity. Mute all notifications from social media sites and the likes when at work. Unless you are expecting an important call, keep your mobile phone on silent mode as well.
You can use the ‘Do Not Disturb’ on smartphone and the computer or personalize the controls in other similar ways. If you find yourself turning to social media sites out of habit, then you can try using installing special apps that help you manage screen site for such websites or even prevent you from accessing them at all.
Overcoming the Crisis from Stressing
Stressing about the future, an upcoming meeting or event and everything else that needs to be done will get you nowhere. Set visual reminders at your desk to not stress over things. Accessories like desk plants, motivational quotes, pictures of friends and family have been proven to reduce stress levels in employees because they not only have a calming effect but also help you stay focused on the bigger picture.
If you feel that stress and anxiety are severely affecting your performance, then do not hesitate to reach out for help. Everyone goes through ups and downs, so it’s important that you consult the relevant personnel and take the necessary measures before it turns into depression or leads to other disastrous results.
The fundamental point to note is that if you really want to push forth towards excellence, then you must make a conscious effort to pinpoint anything and everything that distracts you and then do everything in your power to curtail those distractions.
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