Tips For Decreasing Distractions While Working

Authored By: Amanda Unterreiner

No matter what your work environment is, at home, in a small office, or in a big office, there are distractions everywhere! Though we can’t remove all distractions, minimizing the distractions in our work environment can make us much more productive and efficient. Here are a few tips from Danielle DavisRoe for Attorney at Work.

1. Turn off notifications + check your email intentionally. When a notification pops up on your screen that you got an email, it can very easily grab your attention and make you feel like you need to read and address the email right away. Most emails are not so timely that they need your attention the minute they are received. Turn off your email notifications so you can focus on the task at hand, and set aside specific time multiple times throughout the day to read and respond to emails.
2. Do, delegate, delay, delete. When going through emails, follow these steps. If you can do the task in under 5 minutes, do it now and then remove the email from your inbox. If the task can be delegated to someone else, delegate and remove the email from your inbox. If you need to do the task and it is going to take more than 5 minutes, add it to your task list and then remove it from your inbox. If it is spam or an unnecessary email, delete it.
3. Blocking time. Especially when you have a task that will take a lot of time to complete and/or you are feeling overwhelmed starting it, working on a single task, for a chunk of time will help you get started. Set a timer or block out an hour or a few hours to work on a specific task. It is also beneficial to block out time in your calendar to avoid meetings, don’t check emails or make phone calls, and spend focused time on your task list.
4. Put away your cell phone. One of the biggest distractions for everyone is their cell phone. We all get notifications coming in all day long, which can distract us, and any time we are on our phones, it can turn into a much bigger chunk of time scrolling than we planned. When you are working, especially during your focused time, put your phone away so that it will not distract you.

Distractions can take up a lot of our time throughout the day, but addressing the distractions we face can help us improve our workflow. Check out the full article from Attorney at Work here.