Imagine you are trying to focus on a task that needs your full attention. You kept your phone out of sight, shut the door, put your noise-cancelling headphones on, and sat with tea or coffee with one aim on your mind, which is to finish the task at hand. A few minutes went by and you noticed that you got an email notification to your office inbox. Despite beating your strong desire to check on that, you continued to focus on your task. Another few minutes went by and you suddenly got a message through your office chat application. Once more beating your growing desire, and curiosity to check on the notification, you somehow managed to stay on focus. A couple of minutes later, your chat application starts buzzing, and you are now in a dilemma about whether to answer the call or not. One side of your brain tells you to stay focused, and the other side is telling you not to give the wrong impression that you are not at your desk when you are meant to be.
When you want to focus on something at work, the last thing you want is distractions coming from your colleagues. When you are working remotely, it can be quite challenging to ignore notifications and stay focused.
“Each notification forces a switch in attention, making it harder to return to the original task. This not only extends the time required to complete tasks but also diminishes the quality of work. Additionally, the stress of constant interruptions can lead to burnout, ultimately decreasing job satisfaction and productivity.” – Steve Nicholls, Managing Director, Executive Connexions
https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1878015/three-quarters-employees-distracted-notifications-workplace-research-finds
However, the good news is, that you can follow a set of simple strategies to minimise distractions and feeling overwhelmed when you are bombarded with notifications and messages.
Identify your distractions
Nothing beats a good understanding of your distractions. Whether it is a Teams channel a chat alert or an Outlook notification, it is important you understand the avenues that you can get distracted. The same goes for distracting notifications from your personal emails, personal chat applications and so on. The more you understand your distractions, the more you become better at coming up with a solution.
Inform your boss/colleagues
Tell your boss and your colleagues about the importance of staying focused on the current task at hand. When people know why it is important that you shouldn’t be disturbed well in advance, they tend to keep their boundaries. However, depending on your seniority, some distractions cannot be avoided. However, informing your close circle will certainly bring those distracting notifications to a minimum.
Quit distracting applications
In the same way, you put your phone out of sight, you must quit those chat/email applications and keep them out of sight while focusing on a task. You can even open another desktop window 1 2 and keep the running apps to a minimum.
It is also important to remember that the more tabs you open in your browser, the more notifications that you can get. Therefore, close those browser tabs that you are not immediately using.
Accept distractions, assess and ignore
As I mentioned above, depending on your seniority, completely ignoring notifications could not be feasible. You can develop a habit of accepting distractions, quickly assessing whether they are more important than what you are currently doing, and ignoring if not, can help you stay focused.
Lead by example
It is easier said than done. If you are a team leader or a manager, you can employ a culture of a healthy work lifestyle by keeping emails, chats and calls to your colleagues to a minimum. That does not mean you are not allowed to contact them if there is a requirement to do so. The key thing is prioritising what’s important and what’s not, keeping your colleagues occupied with things that are important and cutting down avenues that can distract your team’s focusing power.
In a Nutshell
It is very easy to feel overwhelmed by the growing number of notifications arising from emails, chat applications and so on, especially when we are working remotely. The more you get overwhelmed by those distractions, the less productive and motivated you become. The key thing is to understand those distracting notifications and follow a plan to minimise them, as we discussed above.
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