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What to Do When You’re Feeling Distracted at Work
By Amy Gallo
Sometimes there’s so much going on in your life, and in the world, that you can’t focus. What can you do when every time you sit down at your desk, you feel distracted? How can you get back to feeling focused and productive?
What the experts say
Feeling distracted and unproductive is something most people struggle with, says Susan David, founder of the Harvard/McLean Institute of Coaching and author of Emotional Agility.1 This is especially true because most of us are constantly bombarded by news alerts, text messages, and other interruptions. And even on days when you might feel industrious, you have to contend with what’s going on with your coworkers. “We very subtly pick up on others’ behaviors and emotions,” David says.2 “When this happens, we can start to lose our way.” Rich Fernandez, CEO of the nonprofit Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a global mindfulness and emotional intelligence training organization, notes that we’re actually wired this way. “One thing we all have in common is a fundamental neuroanatomy that orients us toward stress that isn’t always productive,” he explains. To overcome this and regain your focus, take the following eight steps.
Understand the dangers of multitasking
Start by understanding the impact that distractions, like a constantly pinging phone or quick Twitter break, have on your brain. Fernandez explains that we have a network of brain structures related to focus.3 There’s the default mode network, which is responsible for analyzing the past, forecasting or planning for the future, and reflecting on oneself and others. “We’re in this mode at least half of the time,” he says. But when you need to focus your mind, you tap into the direct attention network, which allows you to put aside ruminations and stay on task. Distractions, in whatever form they take, pull you back into default mode, and the cognitive cost of regaining your focus is high.4 “Some research shows it can take ten to eighteen minutes to get the same level of attention back,” Fernandez says.5 This is why it’s critical to reduce interruptions.
Allow for your emotional response, but stay in charge
Feeling overwhelmed can bring up a lot of emotions—frustration, anger, anxiety—that take a further toll on your productivity. So you have to break the cycle, David says. To regain a sense of agency, so you don’t feel “at the mercy of the events going on in the world or in your office,” she suggests labeling your feelings and then asking yourself questions about them.6 You might say, “OK, I’m feeling angry, but who’s in charge—the anger or me, the person having the emotion?” Fernandez agrees with this approach: “You want to acknowledge that these feelings are there—they’re legitimate and significant—but not get swept away by them.”
Gather your attention
When you do find yourself distracted, Fernandez says, “Pause, take stock, be aware that you’re being triggered. Then switch the spotlight of your attention.” This might feel easier said than done, but remind yourself that most of the things we worry about “aren’t immediate existential threats.” To reconnect with the logical part of your brain, focus it on “something more immediate or visceral, like your breath.” You might say to yourself, “I’ve become consumed by this Twitter thread. I’m going to pay attention to my breathing” to pivot away from what’s causing the anxiety.7 Fernandez says this isn’t the same as trying to ignore the distraction: “You don’t have to stifle it or suppress it. Make note of it, acknowledge it, and put it in a mental parking lot to think about later, when you can discuss it with someone else, or when you’re not at work and have lots to do.”
Rely on your values
Once you’ve gathered your attention, you can choose where to focus it. David says that concentrating on your values gives you a sense of control. “When you’re overwhelmed, it feels like a lot of power and choices are being taken away from you,” she says. “But you still get to choose who you want to be. If one of your core values is to be collaborative, focus on that. How can you help people feel like part of the team?” And consider how your lack of focus is affecting your sense of self. “If fairness is important to you, how is your distraction contributing to your ability to be fair? If you’re on Facebook for three hours a day, how fair is that to your team or your family?”
Put up boundaries
Once you have more awareness about what distracts you, set rules for yourself. If you realize that checking news in the morning means that you’re upset and unfocused when you get to the office, tell yourself that you won’t catch up on world events until lunchtime.8 Or you can decide that you’re going to get a certain amount of work done before you go on Facebook. If you don’t have the self-control for this, there are apps you can install in your browsers or on your phone to control how much time you spend on particular sites. You also have to practice. “There’s a lot of research that suggests the difference between elite focus and non-elite focus is deliberate focus,” Fernandez says.9 He points to athletes who train by telling themselves, for example, “I’m not going to leave the free-throw line until I make 10 free throws.” So spend time training your brain to stay on task.
Choose whom you interact with wisely
Social contagion is real. “We’ve all had that experience when you go into an elevator and everyone is looking at their cell phones, so you start looking at yours,” David says. She points to recent research that shows that if someone next to you on an airplane buys candy—even if you don’t know the person—you’re 30% more likely to make a similar purchase.10 The same goes for productivity.11 If you have colleagues who are constantly distracted themselves or who tend to pull you away from work, try to spend less time with them. You don’t have to be rude; you can say something simple like, “Can we continue this conversation later? I want to get this report done and then I can take a break.”
Support and be supported by your colleagues
Instead of avoiding your distracted colleagues, you could try to encourage each other to stay focused. Make a pact with your coworkers. Set up a time where you will work without interrupting each other or without getting on social media or workplace messaging app Slack. The team I work with at HBR designated Thursday afternoons as uninterrupted work time after listening to a podcast about this.12 You can take this collegial support one step further and actively support each other. “Your peers are in the trenches with you and they can relate because they’re in the same culture and organization,” Fernandez says. Go out to coffee with a coworker and “ask for advice, counsel, and coaching.” They may have tactics that have worked for them that you haven’t thought of. Make a commitment to each other that you’re going to change your behavior and check in regularly on your progress. When you tell someone else that you want to reform your ways, you’re more likely to follow through.13
Take care of your body
If you’re tired and worn out, you’re going to be more vulnerable to feeling overwhelmed, David says. It’s important to get enough sleep and exercise. Also, she suggests making “tiny tweaks in your environment” that improve your well-being.14 Take breaks, eat a healthy lunch, put your phone on silent. “If you normally spend your lunch hour on Facebook, leave your phone behind and go outside for a walk instead,” she says.
Principles to remember
Do:
- Use breathing to break the immediate cycle of anxiety and frustration with being distracted.
- Think about how you want to act as a colleague and a leader, and let that self-image guide your behavior.
- Set boundaries around when you’ll go on social media or check email.
Don’t:
- Fool yourself into thinking distractions aren’t harmful to your focus—they have high cognitive costs.
- Spend time with people who are distracted. You’re likely to end up feeling the same way.
- Neglect self-care. Instead, take breaks, eat healthily, and get enough sleep.
Case study #1: Schedule time to focus
Over the past year, Emily Lin, a vice president at a financial services company, had a lot on her plate. She was building her private coaching practice and had received a promotion at work. Because of the expanded scope of her responsibilities, she was dealing with a whole host of new distractions. “I got so many more emails, instant messages, and phone calls. And people were coming by my office much more frequently,” she says.
Emily was having trouble getting her work done. “I would see all these instant messages or email alerts popping up, and even if it just took a few seconds to read them or send a quick response, it would take me away from what I was doing,” she says. And it was affecting her mood. “Certain messages would stress me out. I was becoming very short-tempered with my coworkers.”
She had previously learned to set boundaries for herself around social media by scheduling in time for distractions. “I gave myself pockets of time when I could go on Facebook. It might be a 10-minute break between meetings or while I was waiting for the elevator to go to lunch. Once I baked those breaks in, I found it a lot easier to control the impulse to check social media while I was working,” she explains.
She did something similar to address the work interruptions: she allowed herself time to read and respond to messages, but only after getting her most important work completed. “At the beginning of each week, I ask myself, ‘What are the most critical things I have to complete?’ And each day, I ask, ‘Today, what is the one thing I absolutely have to do?’” She says that helped her determine how much time she needed to focus, and then she would block that time out in two-hour chunks. “For a two-hour window, I turn off email, put ‘do not disturb’ on instant messenger, and send my phone directly to voicemail.” She would even put on headphones as a way to signal to would-be visitors that she was busy.
Two hours seems to be the right amount of time, she says. It gives her enough time to get deeply involved in a task, and it’s a “tolerable amount of time to be unreachable,” she says. “After that, people start to call back or email again.” Plus, it gives her a sense of urgency. “I have the adrenaline to get things done.”
Emily says this approach has worked: “It’s had a noticeable effect on my productivity.” And she feels less stressed. “Because I’m not constantly looking at my email throughout the day, my blood pressure isn’t always escalated. I’m a lot more patient now when I am interrupted.”
She points out that getting more sleep has also helped her resist distractions. A few years ago she was only sleeping three or four hours a night, but she has drastically revamped her sleep schedule and is now getting from six and a half to seven hours a night. “I went from feeling overwhelmed and unable to focus to being able to think clearly,” she says. “When I’m well rested, I have more perspective. I know I don’t have to respond to an email right away.” She’s even become “a huge sleep evangelist” with her coaching clients.
Case study #2: Set boundaries
Sarah Taylor (not her real name), an HR manager at an international humanitarian organization, struggled to stay focused at work for several months before and after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. She says she couldn’t stay away from the news. “I was spending several hours a day—throughout the workday, not just in the evenings—compulsively checking for updates on various sites, like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN.” Because of these distractions, she would get behind and found herself working late into the evening and on weekends to try to keep up.
“I was miserable because I wasn’t getting sufficient rest—not to mention I was being continually exposed to bad news every day.” While she knew this wasn’t good for her, she struggled to set limits on her own.
She saw a reference to StayFocusd, a browser extension that sets time limits for selected websites. She checked online reviews and saw that it had helped others like her, so she decided to try it out. “At that point, I was desperate to find ways to fix my bad habit, which I was clearly unable to do through my own willpower,” she says.
She put a 10-minute daily limit on the three news sites she mentioned earlier. Once that limit has passed, a window pops up that says, “Shouldn’t you be working?” She says it definitely helps—though she does find ways around it. “My sneaky mind starts looking at sites that I haven’t yet blocked, such as the BBC.”
She’s set other rules for herself as well. When she works from home, she keeps all of her personal devices out of the room where she’s working. She still stays up-to-date on current events, she says, “but at least I’m no longer risking being seriously behind on my core work duties.”
AMY GALLO is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review and the author of the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict. She writes and speaks about workplace dynamics. Follow her on Twitter @amyegallo.
Notes
1.Susan David, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life (New York: Avery, 2016).
2.Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan, “Make Yourself Immune to Secondhand Stress,” hbr.org, September 2, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/09/make-yourself-immune-to-secondhand-stress.
3.Matthew McKinnon, “Neuroscience of Mindfulness: Default Mode Network, Meditation, and Mindfulness,” mindfulnessmd.com, June 17, 2017, https://www.mindfulnessmd.com/2014/07/08/neuroscience-of-mindfulness-default-mode-network-meditation-mindfulness/.
4.Bob Sullivan and Hugh Thompson, “Brain, Interrupted,” New York Times, May 3, 2013.
5.American Psychological Association, “Multitasking: Switching Costs,” March 20, 2006, http://www.apa.org/research/action/multitask.aspx.
6.Susan David, “3 Ways to Better Understand Your Emotions,” hbr.org, November 10, 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/11/3-ways-to-better-understand-your-emotions.
7.Leah Weiss, “A Simple Way to Stay Grounded in Stressful Moments,” hbr.org, November 18, 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/11/a-simple-way-to-stay-grounded-in-stressful-moments.
8.Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan, “Consuming Negative News Can Make You Less Effective at Work,” hbr.org, September 14, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/09/consuming-negative-news-can-make-you-less-effective-at-work.
9.K. Anders Ericcson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely, “The Making of an Expert,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2007, 114.
10.Eilene Zimmerman, “Pedro M. Gardete: Fellow Airline Passengers Influence What You Buy,” Insights by Stanford Business, Stanford Graduate School of Business, February 6, 2015, https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/pedro-m-gardete-fellow-airline-passengers-influence-what-you-buy.
11.Jason Corsello and Dylan Minor, “Want to Be More Productive? Sit Next to Someone Who Is,” hbr.org, February 14, 2017, https://hbr.org/2017/02/want-to-be-more-productive-sit-next-to-someone-who-is.
12.Jason Fried, “Restoring Sanity to the Office,” interview by Sarah Green-Carmichael, Harvard Business Review, Audio, 31:32, December 29, 2016, https://hbr.org/ideacast/2016/12/restoring-sanity-to-the-office.
13.Rebecca Knight, “Make Your Work Resolutions Stick,” hbr.org, December 29, 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/12/make-your-work-resolutions-stick.
14.Amy Jen Su, “6 Ways to Weave Self-Care into Your Workday,” hbr.org, June 19, 2017, https://hbr.org/2017/06/6-ways-to-weave-self-care-into-your-workday.
Reprinted from hbr.org, originally published
December 20, 2017 (product #H0433F).