Part Three of a Four-Part series on Wrangling the Double-Edged Sword of Technology

An excerpt from Lauren Parsons’ book ‘Thriving Leaders Thriving Teams’.

Technology has drastically changed the way we live, play, move, breathe and work. Many of the advancements are fantastic. They simplify and speed up processes, make us easy to contact, and keep us informed and in touch with loved ones. However, technology is a double-edged sword, with serious negative impacts for our wellbeing, relationships and productivity when not wielded correctly.

Technology is making us: 

1. Constantly accessible.
2. Less connected.
3. More distracted. (today’s topic)
4. Overloaded with information. (coming soon)

Let’s look at the third challenge of being digitally distracted and how you can leverage technology to your benefit.

Challenge #3 – More Distracted 

In a world where we’re constantly ‘surrounded by weapons of mass distraction’, our ability to focus is critical to both our wellbeing and effectiveness. The number of people who say they find it difficult to concentrate because of their work environment has increased from 46% in 2018 to now over 65%. Attention is a finite (and increasingly important) resource and needs to be protected and used wisely. 

Multi-tasking is a myth. When we try to do more than one thing at a time, the brain doesn’t multi-task, it simply switches tasks rapidly, using up precious neural resources in the process.

Neuroscientist Earl Miller explains that when people believe they’re doing several things at once, they’re juggling. “They’re switching back and forth. They don’t notice the switching because their brain sort of papers it over to give a seamless experience of consciousness, but what they’re actually doing is switching and reconfiguring their brain moment-to-moment, task-to-task. That comes with a cost.”  

If you’re focusing on writing a report, and you receive a text, you might take five seconds to glance at it. What you lose however isn’t just the five seconds. It’s much more. Your brain has to reconfigure to go from one task to another. It has to refocus and remember what you were doing before it can get back in flow. As a result, performance drops. You’re significantly slower. This is called the ‘switch-cost effect’ and it’s affecting more and more of us.

A Carnegie Mellon University study compared students sitting a test where one group received intermittent text messages, while the other had their phones switched off. Those students who received the texts performed 20% worse on the test. Imagine the flow-on effect for your workplace if you and your team could all be 20% more effective! 

The Addiction

The challenge is, the apps on smart devices are intentionally highly addictive. Seeing another ‘like’, a notification icon lighting up or getting to the next level on a game creates the same dopamine response we get from alcohol and drugs. We become obsessed with getting our next hit. Mindless scrolling occurs because there are no stopping cues – the feed is designed to continue on and on – making it easy to spend minutes and even hours a day without realising how much time has passed. 

Your brain is also wired to seek out novelty, which can derail your attempts to stay focused. Boredom is painful to your brain. So it’s natural, if your phone is in your peripheral vision, for thoughts to pop up about people to message or apps to check, despite your best intentions to stay on task.

Your ability to focus can be trained and improved. Mindfulness practices, such as focusing on your breathing and noticing your thoughts, are like a workout for your attention span. They train your brain to be better at focusing, even at other times. 

There is Hope

We need to actively manage distractions and structure a workplace culture that reduces constant interruptions, allowing people to focus and do deep work. Many people become slaves to their email, constantly checking it and reacting swiftly to other people’s priorities at the expense of their own. Again, you can shape this with your culture by setting reasonable response timeframes. 

Working in sync can help manage internal interruptions. Some organisations introduce the red flag system – where everyone has a flag, or some other ‘don’t disturb symbol’, visible. When the red ‘flag’ is up, it signals that person is doing focused work and isn’t to be interrupted. For this to work, there also must be respect around not keeping the red flag up all day.

Golden Hours

Another powerful option is to have ‘golden hours’ at set times during the day. These are pre-determined times, for example 10-11am or 2-3pm, when people don’t interrupt one another unless there’s a crisis. If it’s 10.40am and you’re about to ask your colleague a question, you can think to yourself, “I’ll just wait another 20 minutes.” Golden hours work best when there’s work time before or after them where people can freely interact, clarify things and get direction, so avoid them first or last thing in the day. 

As well as productivity gains, there are also social benefits to synchronising work periods and breaks, creating greater opportunities to connect and strengthen relationships.

Sandy Pentland’s research on team dynamics and communication showed some of the best predictors of productivity are team members’ energy and engagement. Based on that insight, his team recommended a large bank’s call centre staff take their breaks at the same time, rather than spreading them evenly throughout the day (which had been the conventional wisdom, in order to keep the same number of staff on the phones).

When they trialled synchronising breaks in one centre, the results were dramatic, with average handling times shortening by up to 20%. As a result, the bank plans to roll out the practice across all call centres and predicts a $15 million productivity increase. All that, simply from aligning break times.

Regain Focus

Arianna Huffington recommends walking as a way to concentrate. “Between our minds and our legs, one of them is going to wander. Sit still and our minds want to ramble. Get up and start walking, and our minds can slow down and be more focused.” She highlights the benefits of walking meetings to help be more present with each other. “What I love is that you’re literally facing your problem or situation together when you walk side by side with someone. I love that people can’t be checking email or Twitter during walking meetings. You’re awake to what’s happening around you, your senses are heightened and you walk away with something office meetings rarely give you – a sense of joy.”

The result from creating an environment where your staff can focus and work in-sync and without distractions, will be high-performing individuals and teams who achieve more in less time, get home earlier, and maintain great life balance.

In 2018, Andrew Barnes, founder and former Managing Director of Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand-based trust and wills firm, decided to pay his staff for five days, but gift them one day off a week if they could meet certain productivity targets. After asking staff to come up with ideas on how they could create efficiencies, they trialled the four-day week and tracked the results. They thought productivity would dip somewhat, but surprisingly, it actually improved. The biggest difference however, was that staff stress levels went down while life balance and engagement increased significantly. 

Barnes asked one team member, James, how he was finding it. He replied “It’s good, but I’m having a bit of trouble with the wife.” He explained they were house-hunting and his wife kept sending him property listings. James said, “I had to tell her I’m not prepared to look at these in the office anymore because if I do, I’ll not be able to look my colleagues in the eye and say I did everything possible to keep our four-day week.” 

Staff were no longer allowing so many non-work related distractions to interrupt their day, meaning they were more efficient, earning themselves the fantastic reward of a three-day weekend. Barnes was so thrilled with the productivity, engagement and job satisfaction levels he decided to adopt the practice full-time. It’s also been implemented by many companies around the world.

How to Focus

IDEAS FOR LEADERS

• Establish golden hours in your workplace at one or two key points in the day. Block them in people’s calendars. Indicate the start with a certain sound, by playing a song, with a digital message on everyone’s screen or someone saying ‘let’s dive in’ to start the work sprint. 
• Consider making them ‘golden 90 minutes’ to be even more effective.
• As an alternative to golden hours, consider a red flag system. Trial whichever works best for your team.
• Educate staff about ‘switch-cost effect’ and reinforce the power of single-tasking. Make it ‘the way we do things around here’ to work on one thing at a time, with focused attention.
• Synchronise staff breaks and encourage them to use this time to catch up socially, away from devices. They’ll come back after a relaxed conversation and a laugh with rested brains, ready to dive into work again.
• Relieve the ‘constant email pressure’ by making it the norm for all except vital high-response roles, to only check email three times a day. Add a line to this effect in people’s signature blocks, training people to phone or text if there’s anything truly urgent that can’t wait a few hours. 
• Work in offline mode for the majority of time so you can still use your email programme, but you’re not knee-jerking every time a new email arrives.
• Consider having an auto-reply for customer-facing roles saying “Thank you for your message we will endeavour to reply within 24 hours” (or whatever timeframe suits your business model). This helps manage expectations.
• Remove physical distractions and clutter from your workspaces.
• Review your workspace layout. Do a subtle time and motion study and take note of what distracts staff. Pay attention to sound levels in different areas. Talk to staff about what they like and don’t like. Decide on the norms you want.
• Consider reconfiguring workspace layouts and investing in sound blocking partitions that also reduce visual distractions.
• Have a balance of quiet zones and collaborative zones, booths and meeting rooms so people can find the relevant space for the work they want to do and discussions won’t affect others.
• Have designated social connection areas. An obvious one is your staff room which is usually designed for eating. Alongside this, consider creating a chill out space, board game nook or bean bag corner to provide diverse ways for people to connect.
• Open your meetings with a mindfulness exercise to get people practising the skill of paying attention (which is something they can develop, just like physical fitness). 
• Again, encourage outdoor and/or walking meetings as a chance to focus in a completely different setting.
• Those nap rooms I mentioned earlier are also relevant in this section. Taking a nap when it’s needed is perhaps the most effective way to regain focus.

IDEAS FOR INDIVIDUALS

• Work with your phone out of sight during periods of focused work (or in flight mode if you’re using it for your count-down timer). 
• Use technology to your advantage to reduce interruptions. The range of apps is wide. They can prevent access to the internet or to certain sites, help you focus, and even track where you spend your time. 
• Noise cancelling headsets (with or without music playing) minimise interruptions.
• When distracting thoughts come to mind, jot them down on a notepad to attend to later so you can stay focused on what you’re doing.
• Multiple tabs open in your browser? Click ‘star’ to favourite them and close them so you can focus on one thing at a time.
• Multiple sets of paperwork open at once? Clear the clutter so you can focus.
• Switch off alerts on all your devices, especially any which make noises. 
• Choose fixed times to check your email and communicate this to your colleagues and clients, explaining the best way to reach you if something is urgent. 

Enjoyed this article? 

If you’d like to improve staff wellbeing at your workplace I’d love to help.

Here are some places to start:
    1. ​Order a copy of Thriving Leaders Thriving Teams for tonnes more practical ideas

​    2. Visit the website to access fantastic free resources

    3. ​Make a time to connect for a chat to find out more about:

• The THRIVE Partnership Programme to transform your workplace culture for the better.
• Motivational workshops to inspire and educate your team
• Leadership Development to make a real difference at the highest level

About the Author – Lauren Parsons, CSP, AS

Lauren is a keynote speaker, author and consultant who’s passionate about helping busy people discover little-used techniques to boost their energy, vitality and performance. She’s the only speaker in the world to focus on lifting BOTH workplace wellbeing and productivity.

Awarded NZ Keynote Speaker of the Year and Educator of the Year 2023/24 by the Professional Speakers Association. Lauren is a sought-after international speaker, one of only a dozen Certified Speaking Professionals and the only Accredited Speaker in New Zealand.

TEDx speaker, Author of Thriving Leaders Thriving Teams and Real Food Less Fuss, Founder of the Snack on Exercise movement and host of the Thrive TV Show. With over 20 years’ experience, Lauren integrates her wellness and business background to help leaders find the sweet spot between boosting both wellbeing and productivity.

Described as unforgettable and life-changing, Lauren is a dynamic and highly-engaging presenter, and master story-teller who will have you laughing, moving and learning in a memorable way. Whether it’s virtual or in-person, you will leave Lauren’s session feeling uplifted and empowered to create positive change, today!

Based in the Manawatu, New Zealand, where she lives with her husband and three children, Lauren can often be found hosting dinner parties, playing board games, running, reading or getting out in her gumboots to walk the paddocks. She travels regularly to speak at conferences and in-house and specialises in helping leaders create positive, energised workplaces where people thrive.

Check out all the goodness at Lauren’s “Free Stuff” page at www.LaurenParsonsWellbeing.com

Ways to connect with Lauren

• Find out about conference keynotes 
• See her most popular topics
• Make a time for a virtual cuppa over zoom