While distractions can be a welcome source of creativity in some lines of work, most of us need periods of concentration in order to do our jobs to the best of our ability.
In the age of social media, where the potential for distraction has never been greater, this presents a major challenge for professionals and their organizations. How do you shut out the ‘noise’ and make sure you’re diverting all your brain power where it’s needed, at the right time?
Neuroscience has some interesting ideas that can help answer this question.
Is this your typical work day?
Do you start the work day by checking emails and browsing a few web pages as you prepare for the day? So, do you leave your email and social media channels open all day while you try to focus on the tasks at hand?
Many of us try to multitask, thinking it’s possible to prepare that report for the boss while chatting with a client on the phone and texting a friend about dinner plans.
In reality, unless we can truly do the task on ‘autopilot’, like brushing our teeth, for example, this is more likely to lead to mistakes, omissions, and possibly mistakes in dinner plans.
Because? Because the human brain is not capable of multitasking. Neuroscience has shown that what we think of as multitasking is actually ‘switching’ rapidly between activities. The brain can only focus on one thing at a time, so when we juggle tasks, we are actually asking our brain to frequently switch between activities. This is not only susceptible to errors; it also consumes energy for the brain. Therefore, the more we try to juggle, the less ‘fuel’ our brain has and the less likely we are to succeed at ANY of the tasks we are trying to complete.
That is why it is so important to prioritize, manage time and schedule our activities and breaks during the day.
Manage time and take adequate breaks
When we ask our brain to do more as tasks pile up, what we really need is a break, to allow our brain to recharge. That overworked people become stressed and “burned out” is not surprising, but few people think about the effects on the brain that help cause this.
Neuroscience studies have found that people who take 15-minute breaks every two hours are more productive than those who try to keep going. These breaks shouldn’t be reading emails or engaging in more social media; they need to involve ‘wanderings’ of the brain… a short walk, listening to music or chatting with friends about last night’s TV shows.
What we found is that social media or email tends to ‘feed’ the trend towards short attention spans and constant ‘brain switching’ from one task to another. Studies show that with every interruption presented by a new email or chat message (for example), it can take upwards of 20 minutes to get back to the task at hand.
When we return, we may be in a stressed state because the brain has still been rapidly switching between tasks, rather than allowing it to wander.
Social media and ‘always-on’ communication channels present a huge challenge to workplace performance because we always have an eye on the things that are most important to us; more and more of these things are available to us through online activity, so the tendency for self-disruption is high.
So scheduling times to check email and social media, and being disciplined to stick to set windows for these activities, is key to preventing distractions from hijacking our performance at work.