Are your digital systems a distraction? One of the biggest challenges we see in the work environment is that tools that are supposed to be helpful have instead become distractions. How many times has this happened: You're in a meeting, someone hears a ding, they look at their email?  Or they receive a call and they pick up their phone and say, “Hey, I'm in a meeting, I'll call you back”.  Do you know what voicemail is?  Studies have shown that each interruption causes your employee to lose focus for between 5 and 24 minutes.

It doesn’t take too many dings or rings for an entire day to be completely unproductive!  If you see these behaviors in your organization, you know these tools have become a distraction.  However, here are a few things you can do about it: 

• Remove all notifications and sounds for emails. Most emails are not truly urgent and if they are the person will call or text you. You should always disable email alerts. 
• During times when you need to focus use the “Do Not Disturb” setting. 
• Schedule two or three 15-minute periods each day to deal with emails/texts. 
• Make meetings “tech free” zones.

Any person who has questioned Pavlov’s Theory (event triggers response) just needs to watch today’s workers with their tech.  How many times each day do you look at your phone, answer a text or read a website that takes you away from achieving the truly important goals of your organization?