Ways Of Dealing Distractions At Workplace

Project Management / By

All workers have trouble with distractions in the workplace to a certain degree. Distraction level varies from person to person, those with less concentration are distracted easily while others take time. So it is necessary that everyone must ensure few proactive measures to avoid or reduce these distractions. Distractions range from external distractions like loud phone calls, heated discussions in common area, or celebrations within a certain group to self-distractions such as Whatsapp, Facebook, sms or email.

At times the working style or habit can also cause real distraction and resulting in unproductive tasks like spending your day checking and answering email or not planning or prioritizing basis criticality of the task and accepting whatever comes across your desk. Though the frequency and nature of distractions depends on the kind of industry, work, office setup and work culture, there are a number of common workplace disruptions that many of us endure. Few of them are

  • Emails/phone calls
  • Unexpected visitors
  • Environment
  • Noise
  • Unplanned Meetings
  • Lists/Expectations 
  1. Emails/ phone calls– If you need a certain duration for completing some urgent task, change your status to “busy” on your chat windows, put an auto generated reply on your email and mobile. It depends on the response time developed unofficially with respect to returning phone calls and email messages. Reset the expectation of your stakeholders. Explicitly convey to them that you will respond within two to three hours or a day depending on the nature and severity.
  2. Unexpected Visitors- Some stakeholders drop by without a prior intimation or sometimes your friends or colleagues, decide to take in your space in their break. Get to the point quickly if someone comes by and interrupts your work.
  3. Environment. This include heating, cooling and lighting in the office. Some lights create glare, leading to headaches and tired eyes, resulting in reduction in productivity of resources. At times the temperature of AC is set to minimum, always carry a jacket or shawl to cover yourself and avoid catching cold.
  4. Noise- Activities like overhearing loud and heated discussions of other team members or colleagues, or one-sided telephone conversations, diverts the concentration of employees. If you are easily distracted, close your door, or try headphones or ask your line HR to intervene and ask the noise makers to proceed to a meeting room.
  5. Unplanned Meetings- Try to minimize the unplanned meetings. In case of risk or any clarity check if you can wait for the planned meeting scheduled for your project. If it is a road block, first check for a workaround or a one-on-one discussion with the concerned person rather than inviting a large group for the meeting.
  6.  Lengthy to-do list– It is really difficult to manage lengthy to-do list resulting in confusion and panic, what to do first. You keep changing your mind every time you scan through the items. And you lose focusing on one item at a time. In such situations write down all the tasks on a paper or excel sheet, prioritize your work according to urgency and then start doing them. 
Some recommendations to deal with distractions:
  • Take the accountability and feel responsible with conscious
  • Give the assigned time for the assigned mission
  • Be fair with your job and yourself
  • Know when you are most productive and least productive in the day and schedule critical or high-complexity activities for the former time slots
  • Take yourself out of the normal work environment if you truly need privacy to get something accomplished
  • Turn off e-mail notifications or better yet, close your e-mail client entirely

Often people get bored with the current activity and decide to check email for a few minutes or their mind keep jumping from one activity to the other. Try to work with only one project at a time, so that if you momentarily lose focus, you can get back on track quickly.

About Aditi Malhotra

Aditi Malhotra is the Content Marketing Manager at Whizlabs. Having a Master in Journalism and Mass Communication, she helps businesses stop playing around with Content Marketing and start seeing tangible ROI. A writer by day and a reader by night, she is a fine blend of both reality and fantasy. Apart from her professional commitments, she is also endearing to publish a book authored by her very soon.

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