As a Project Manager with nearly 20 years in the field, one of my concerns has always been how to engage my audience during sometimes very boring routine meetings. Ever attended an hour long government program status meeting? Eye-glazing excitement. Early in my career, and until the last 5 years or so, I had the advantage of having face to face meetings and the benefit of engaging an audience I could see. Given my penchant for throwing candy and other small goodies during meetings, I had a fairly good track record of engaging meeting participants. The workplace is shifting, however, as remote workers become more commonplace, employers replace private offices with more collaborative and cost effective open workspaces, and ever increasing technology presence pulls at our focus and attention. As I shifted to a more modern work environment, I found that I could still engage my audience. The problem was that I wasn’t “engaging” myself; I became easily distracted even when I was leading a meeting.
| It’s not all “official” noise; employees socially chatting are a common occurrence. We do, after all, want to encourage relationships! That typical conversation, held in a normal tone and volume, can easily carry |
The perfect storm of distracted workers began with employers shifting from private offices to cubicles. Since 1968, when the first office cubicle furniture system was designed, cubicles have taken over the office. More economical, cubicles have been touted as a way to encourage collaboration and employee engagement. As employers seek more collaborative employee behaviors, the cubicle walls have lowered, disappearing all together in many modern offices. Today, many employers redesign cubicle farms into completely open workspaces. While the loss of private offices has increased employee collaboration, it has caused a number of issues, particularly in distraction from office noise.
A second element of the perfect storm for employee distraction is the rise of remote workers. Another cost saving measure by corporations, who can reduce real estate needed to employ large workforces, virtual workers have shifted our means of communication in the workplace from face to face encounters to phone calls and emails. No longer do we walk down the hall to someone’s space and talk; we spend a significant amount of time on the phone attending virtual meetings and connecting with co-workers and supervisors. My calendar today showed 5 hours of my workday dedicated to phone calls with teams all the way in India. While diverse teams bring a host of benefits to the workplace, relying heavily on phone communications means we are able to multi-task. In talking to another person face to face, we would never surf the Internet, listen to someone else on the side, or check our email. While on the phone, however, all of the above and more are common attention and focus splitting behaviors. Add in virtual training and conferences, and we’re spending a lot of distracted time on the phone.
The last element of our distracted worker perfect storm is the rise of technology affecting our attention span. A now famous study by Microsoft showed that the average human attention span in 2000 was 12 seconds. Today, that has dropped to 8 seconds. A goldfish has an average attention span of 9 seconds. Now, I’m not sure how you measure a goldfish’s attention span, but when you tell someone he has the attention span of a goldfish, you’re probably spot on. Technology creates fast moving, visual ways for us to interface with the world and a picture really is worth a thousand words; pictorial information reaches our brains faster and in a more understandable format than text or verbal information. In fact, humans can respond to pictures a full second faster and with a higher accuracy rate. Given that humans have had text-based communications for only roughly 3,700 years, the marketers might be on to something by bombarding us with visual cues. Add in fast moving visuals, and technology has trained us to quickly obtain, store, and understand visual information thereby reducing our need for long attention spans. The result? Eight seconds from now, my mind will move on to something besides writing this article even as I continue to type on the keyboard.
Between noisy cubicle spaces, multi-tasking during our main means of communication, and an 8 second attention span, it’s no wonder we can’t focus on an hour long meeting, complete on a challenging task, or remember what was said 30 seconds ago. What’s a girl to do? While there’s no one magic bullet, there are several things that distracted workers can do to help focus their attention where it needs to be.
Invest in a good headset. I’m talking about the really good, noise cancelling headsets. Spend the extra money on a pair with active noise cancellation and fully cushioned, over the ear design. The best scenario is to have a set for phone use so that external noise is practically eliminated during virtual conferences and meetings. And when you’re not on the phone, flip the microphone out of your way and put them on to create your own “quiet zone.” I personally listen to low volume music as well, to further block out office noise.
Make DND your ally. DND, or Do Not Disturb, allows you to silence calls, alerts and notifications during specific times. It will even let only specific calls get through, so that if little Johnny’s school or the significant other call, you will know it is a call you need to take. Or, you can program DND to let a repeat call within a specified time through. DND won’t interfere with alarms and can also be schedule to occur at set times during the day, allowing you to…
Schedule email time. You schedule time to connect with coworkers, discuss issues, review project progress, and a number of other things. Email is another task you must address, and in order to avoid addressing it at inappropriate times, make sure you have set aside the time. So, whether that’s a block of time once during the day or several smaller chunks of time throughout the day, get it on your calendar. In between, minimize your email and turn off pop ups. You can even, oh my! close your email application.
Break up tasks. Look, we only have an 8 second attention span. If you have to do something that requires extended, dedicated attention and focus, break it up with things that won’t tax your mental limits nearly as much. When I’m writing a complicated work breakdown structure, which can take several hours, I break it into smaller chunks. This gives me a smaller, more attainable goals to reach and a break from it before I completely exhaust my mental capacity. For me, breaking up tasks are done by milestones; “I’ll take a break when I get the first week’s schedule detailed out.” For others, time works best, so use a clock to break up tasks. Regardless of how you do it, find something else to do for at least 10 minutes. This is an excellent opportunity to open that email application you’ve closed and catch up on some emails. Answer the quick ones or file or delete the ones you don’t need to answer. Don’t forget, however, to:
Take a mental break. Want to stay focused and on schedule? Take a mental break. Short, regular breaks from mental tasks improves productivity, creativity and attention. Taking a mental break is different from switching tasks, as suggested above. In taking a mental break, you need to disengage from work for a short five minutes or so. Take a stroll to the third floor, get a cup of coffee, walk a flight of stairs, engage a coworker in conversation. The best mental breaks involve movement; get away from that desk for a minute or two. My mental breaks come to me naturally; since I drink several bottles of water throughout the day, I am forced to get away from my desk every hour or so. On the way, I always encounter someone with whom I have a short conversation. Mental break, check.
Use caffeine wisely. Ah, caffeine. Whether you get it in a cup of Joe like approximately 70% of caffeine consumers or in some other form, caffeine is the go to choice when we’re feeling sluggish. A worshipper of the mighty coffee industry myself, I know from experience what a well-timed dose caffeine can do: within 10 minutes, the caffeine hits your system and your mood improves, your ability to focus increases, your memory improves, and you feel more alert. Take it too far, however, and caffeine becomes the enemy. Excessive caffeine can cause jitters, chronic anxiety, restlessness, irritability, inability to focus, disrupted sleep patterns and the infamous “coffee headache.” And ultimately, caffeine is a drug and can become a dependency like any other drug. So while I’m a huge advocate of caffeine, especially in the coffee form, use it in moderation to help keep you focused at work.
Those are my tips for staying focused at work. What are yours?
