The Stats and The Addiction
According to an AOL online survey conducted in July 2007, the average person receives one email every two seconds and checks email five times per day. Fifty-nine percent of mobile device users admit to checking email every time a message arrives. Needless to say, in today’s technology-saturated environment, communication tools have become addictive, and like any addiction, it’s tough to quit.
The Diagnosis
Today’s information overload, our reactivity, and the resulting stress, confusion and lack of productivity has been given a name—Office Attention Deficit Disorder or Office ADD. In an article by Tom McGrath titled “Do You have Office ADD?” in a 2007 issue of Men’s Health, noted psychiatrist and one of the country’s foremost authorities on ADD, Ned Hallowell, is quoted as saying “Our brains are filled with more data than ever before… with all this information, people are presenting with ADD-like symptoms—difficulty focusing for more than a few seconds, tendency to have a lot of projects going on at once, trouble completing any projects, constant search for stimulation, trouble with time management and a tendency to procrastinate.” It makes sense: the more data we are inundated with, the more information we are forced to screen out.
The Myth of Multi-Tasking
In a study conducted by Microsoft, Microsoft research scientists and University of Illinois professors collaborated to investigate how long it takes people to return to a task when they are interrupted by an email or instant message. The average? Fifteen minutes. Additionally, the researchers noted, “…when people finally do start working again, they don’t reach their level of earlier concentration for 10 additional minutes.” So, when you add that to the 15 minutes it takes to return to the task at hand, the minimum total time that can be lost by answering just one email is 25 minutes!
Curbing the Addiction, Improving Your Work Life
The information flow is not going to subside. If anything, as new devices are introduced to the marketplace, it will increase. Productivity (and sanity) in this environment can be achieved by creating systems to optimize information management. In effect, taking back control of your technology!
Here are some tips that can help put you back in charge:
Try setting aside two or three specific times during the day where you read and respond to new emails. Depending upon your incoming email volume, you might need anywhere between 10 and 60 minutes during those times. Avoid checking for new emails outside of those hours.
If you use Instant Messaging (IM), you might think about when you should logout of the program. You could set your status message to “sry ctn bbl” (sorry, can’t talk now, be back later).
Consider designating certain times of the day “quiet time,” and turn off your cell phones, close your door, put your office phone on ‘do not disturb,’ logout from IM and work on projects requiring your full attention.
Turn off your notification settings on both your phone and your computer so that you don’t feel compelled to check your email when you hear (or feel) the notification alert. Instead, you decide when and how often you want to check your email.
Know your body’s rhythms. Notice when you have the most energy during the day and schedule that time to move your agenda forward by attacking your most important priorities. Protect these energy bursts by avoiding all activities that could distract you from your agenda—like checking for new emails, surfing the web and so on.
Monitor your online time. Keep a log of where you go on the internet and for how long you stay for a day so you can get a comprehensive picture of time spent. Then, modify as needed.
Change your software settings to stop bothering you. Software programs on your computer are also competing for your attention. Whether it is your spyware program showing you the latest infected files or Windows asking you to update, set these programs to run in the background or to work only when your computer is idle for five minutes or longer.
Excerpts from the American Society of Association Executives Web site.
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