I love to write. Most of the time when I’m researching topics for an article, I’ll have several tabs open. Okay, maybe 12. With all we have going on, though, it made me think about my friends throughout the radio who also have too many tabs open.
The “tabs” I’m referring to, however, are not limited to the ones on your laptop or tablet.
Have you ever heard the term ‘too many irons in the fire’? Blacksmiths must heat iron to a certain temperature so they can work it effectively. When a blacksmith has too many pieces of iron in the fire, the fire begins to cool, preventing it from heating all the pieces.
In sales parlance, when you give a prospect too many choices, they don’t make any choice!
Some alarming statistics from Insightful:
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92% of employers said lost focus is a significant problem in the workplace
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80% of employees said they can’t go an hour without being distracted at work
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67% of employees report checking messages or emails more than 10 times a day
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59% experience interruptions every 30 minutes or less
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Managers identify lack of focused time as the top issue with Gen Z workers (64%)
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68% of employees said they have experienced burnout in the past year
Dr. Samantha Morel said, “Distractions are abundant, ranging from constant notifications on our smartphones to the multitude of tasks vying for our attention. It often feels like our brains are perpetually shifting from one stimulus to another, making it difficult to stay on track.”
What factors cause us to lose focus? Dr. Morel says there are five internal factors and external stimuli that lead to a lack of focus.
1. Multitasking
I’ve gone through training for some of the biggest companies in the world: Tesla, Xerox, Belo, CBS, to name a few. All of them say the same thing: multitasking is a fallacy. You can only do one thing at any point in time. When you attempt to do multiple things at once, you overload the brain, causing your efficiency and focus to plummet.
They aren’t the only ones who say so. According to Unplugged.rest: “The term ‘multitasking’ was actually coined for computers, not humans. It’s been heavily researched and proven that multitasking decreases focus, productivity, and creativity.”
The American Psychological Association: “Studies show that switching tasks can reduce productivity by 40%.”
The Unplugged article says checking a text can take you up to 23 minutes to regain your full focus. Moreover, it went on to quote a Hewlett-Packard study that found people who received emails and texts experienced a 10-point drop in their IQ, which is equivalent to going a night without sleep.
2. Digital Distractions
Dr. Morel isn’t the only one who says so. Massachusetts General Hospital adds, “One of the most prevalent issues is the erosion of concentration and focus. Continuous exposure to digital interruptions can impair our ability to sustain attention on important tasks. The constant shifting of our focus from one notification to another fragments our cognitive processes, leading to decreased productivity and increased stress.”
3. Stress and Anxiety
According to WebMD, this is one of the most common mental health problems in the US, and many things can cause workplace anxiety, according to Darcy E. Gruttadaro, JD, the director of the Center for Workplace Mental Health at the American Psychiatric Association Foundation.
“It’s not uncommon for people to feel nervous about a big presentation, meeting with clients, or working directly with senior leaders,” Gruttadaro says. “Anxiety disorders involve more extreme, often crippling, and persistent levels of fear, apprehension, and worry.”
Gruttadaro says some red flags that might suggest a person has an anxiety disorder include a drop in performance, excessive missed days of work, and not appearing engaged in work. This also includes certain physical complaints, like sweating, upset stomach, and not sleeping well without another explanation.
4. Sleep Deprivation
The Sleep Foundation recently published an excellent article on the effects of sleep deprivation on the business world. “In addition to a workday that averages 9.5 hours, research has found that Americans are spending extra hours working from home each week, with sleep time reduced during workdays. While work schedules and stress can affect sleep, the opposite is true as well. Sleep deprivation can leave you feeling tired, less creative, and make it more difficult to stay focused on important projects.
“Research shows that Americans are chronically sleep deprived. This fatigue inevitably bleeds into the workplace, with one study of US workers discovering that almost 38% of employees experienced fatigue while at work during the previous two weeks.”
5. Boredom
Our colleagues with the BBC called this Boreout. “‘Boreout is chronic boredom,’ says Lotta Harju, an assistant professor of organisational behaviour at EM Lyon Business School, France.’ Knowing what boreout is, and being able to identify it in ourselves, is critical for tackling it.
“There are also actions both workers and companies can take to alleviate it. A number of factors can cause chronic boredom, [experts] identified three main aspects of the boreout phenomenon: ‘being terribly bored, having a crisis of growth and having a crisis of meaning’.”
Bottom Line: Realizing that you tend to lose focus, and knowing how you lose focus, is a great way to begin to move beyond this temporary hiccup. There is no better start date to begin to move beyond what is holding you back than today. It begins with a single step forward, which is admitting there is a shortcoming to be overcome.
Next time, we’ll look at ways we can regain focus.
