The Culture of Constant Distraction

In recent years there has been a proliferation of various channels of communication, but little or no public debate about how to use these new channels wisely — the result being these new channels controlling us, instead of the other way around. Me personally, I have four different email accounts, a cell phone, a home phone, an office phone, a fax number, a Facebook account, a Myspace page, text messaging, a Skype screen name, two IM accounts and of course this blog here. I am outright refusing to get on Twitter. A large part of this is because of the business I am in — communication design. It’s my business to be in the know about these sorts of things, but I have made some drastic changes in my work flow and communications processes in the last year that are rather unorthodox in order to save myself from a complete mental meltdown and dissolution of any shred of an attention span!!!

I first starting thinking about this topic about a year ago when an article came out in The Atlantic Monthly, “Is Google Making us Stupid?” The article talks about how the barrage of information on the internet is changing the way we read and cites how people who were lit majors in college and voracious readers at one time can’t get through an entire book now. It got me thinking. I started to notice how IM and email notifications on my desktop were constantly throwing me off-track when sitting down to work, which requires long bouts of sustained concentration on a task. I started to suspect that working with the TV on during the day, since I was working from my living room at the time, maybe wasn’t such a good idea either. I shut off IM during the day, ditched my TV and turned off the option on my email to ding with a notification window appearing in the lower right-hand corner of my screen every time a new email arrived. I also set my email to only check for messages manually. I noticed that my productivity went back to where I remember it used to being years ago, and the anxious feeling that I always seemed to have lately, had disappeared.

I then started to notice other people’s behavior around me and how they were dealing with being constantly interrupted, and how they allowed it most of the time — clients and colleagues sending texts and emails while in meetings, or being on IM while on a conference call with someone else. I realized that our culture had become one of constant distraction. Renny Gleeson in his recent talk at a TED Conference called it a “culture of accessibility.” I would go so far as to call it an obsession with accessibility and avoidance of boredom at all costs.

Being in an almost constant state of distraction affects our productivity in and outside of work without most of us even realizing it; However we find ourselves acutely aware of how stressed we feel when we have to work all night to make a deadline or always running ten minutes late for appointments or just having a constant feeling of anxiousness in general. What most of us aren't aware of is that others have to repeat what they say to us three, four and even five times because we weren't paying attention on the first, second, third or even fourth time because we think we can multi-task with attention to detail. This undermines our credibility with clients and causes bills from vendors to be higher since they have to account for extra time added in for extra client management.

The next thing that happened to me was I got an iPhone. Having the ability to download podcasts to watch on the subway, I loaded up. I realized that the podcasts I was finding on-line were more robust with real information and less fluff than what I was seeing on TV. I was struck by the difference in formatting. Podcasts are formatted for someone who is going to listen to, or watch it, from start to finish, hence 10-20% of the show is not wasted giving you a sneak preview of what is coming after the commercial or giving you a recap after you get back from the commercial, because there are no commercials and the usual channel-flipping of the end user is not occurring. At that point, I gave away my TV and canceled my cable and never looked back.

Karin Stuart, Daily Mastery

I then met Karin Stuart, a productivity expert. Her pedigree is impressive. Besides 15 years of experience as such, Karin earned a PhD in Communication Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. She came to the US to complete a research project at Boston University and then left academia to work at a boutique consulting firm specializing in fatigue and non-traditional scheduling issues which inspired her to pursue her true passion — helping people live better lives.

In one-on-one conversations with her, I learned a lot. I think the following interview gives all of us something to think about and take away in our ever changing culture with new communication vehicles constantly coming into being.

Q: How does being more accessible and "wired" affect productivity in tangible, real-world terms?

A: It actually tends to be very counterproductive, because when you’re accessible all the time people will have a tendency to access you at all times, so YOU will be more or less constantly interrupted, which is very detrimental to productivity.

Q: Can’t you just get used to it?

A: No. Because some of it has a physiological basis, and I don't know yet of a way to change your hard-wiring. Here is basically how the physiology of interruption works: when you are focused on something your whole brain is fully engaged in that activity. When it is interrupted with something different, your brain has to adjust to the new activity, and that adjustment is not instantaneous. For instance, let’s say that you’re in the middle of something and the phone rings; the person calls you about something totally unrelated to what you were doing. At first your brain feels a little, then after a couple of minutes it becomes clear and focused. That fuzziness is actually the brain adjusting itself to the new activity.

Computers can easily move from one task to another instantly because they are not really changing tasks; all a computer does is doing simple operations on a bunch of ones and zeroes, whether you're reading your email, working on an excel sheet, or playing a video game. Our brains don’t work that way. To keep using an electronics analogy, it’s as if the brain needs to rewire itself every time it changes task. So every time your technology interrupts you, you find yourself having to rewire everything, and then you have to rewire back for what you were doing before, which takes a while — it can actually take up to a half hour to regain your focus.

Q: So when people get interrupted, they can't just go back to what they were doing? You mean it has tangible adverse effects on performance?

A: Definitely. It affects performance at all levels. It increases the rates of mistakes, it slows things down, and it also decreases the depth of thinking or analysis.

Q: What do you think is the best medium of communication and why?

A: I think there isn’t one best medium of communication. There are different mediums of communication for different purposes. The problems that arise usually don't arise because people use a certain medium of communication, but because they use it inappropriately. For instance, setting up an appointment with somebody is often a lot faster by phone than by email. Yet a lot of people do it by email back and forth. The computer can also be extraordinarily productive and time-saving, but only as long as you remember that it’s the means to an end, and that sometimes other means will get you to the end better and faster. If the computer becomes an end in itself, becomes the thing that you use and go to no matter what, it actually is going to be more cumbersome and slower than other solutions, such as pen and paper, sometimes.

Q: Really? Can you give an example of that?

A: Absolutely, one case I have often seen is brainstorming. Usually, when you start a project, you start by jotting ideas down. Some people unfortunately start doing this in the computer. The medium in this case is much slower than pen and paper, because then you want to put your ideas in form (the WYSIWYG format encourages this), then you are distracted by the spell checker for a misspelled word, etc. It actually ends up impairing your ability to just let ideas come out. When you have a simple pen and paper, you just jot some things, you don't read back what you've written down. Even better, there are certain note-taking techniques that allow you to do some this brainstorming so that everything you jot down self-organizes. It ends up being a lot faster and nothing comes in the way of the ideas and inspiration, the way the computer might.

Q: What do you think is the worst medium of communication and why?

A: I will put IM and Twitter at the top of the list. IM combines the disadvantages of the phone with those of email, and almost every conversation done with it could be done faster and/or more effectively either by phone or email. Twitter, the way it is most often used, is also a wonderful waste of time. This is not to say that there are no legitimate use for either, but these are tools that are very very over- and mis-used. Another mis-used and abused too is the Blackberry. It is a tool that was created specifically for "road warriors," the people who are always out of the office, to be able to read their email, to be in contact with their office, without having to lug a heavy laptop. Somehow it became this tool that a lot of people are slaves to, that they are checking and answering every five minutes. While it is a great tool when used properly, it becomes a huge source of distraction and interruption when mis-used.

Q: Do you think people need to be distracted?

A: That’s a complicated question. My first impulse is to say I don’t really think so, but maybe there is something to it. But if we go there, we’re going into deep psychological notions that maybe a psychologist will be more qualified to answer than me.

This being said, focus is partially natural, something that is inborn, but it’s also something that we cultivate. You can actually reduce your attention span depending on what you’re doing. And there are studies that have documented that after certain activities people have shorter attention spans.

Q: Why do you think people think that immediate access is better?

A: In business, it is often because they believe that it gives better customer service, that their clients will be more satisfied if they have instant access to them. It’s perfectly fine if you’re a customer service representative; as a matter of fact, you’re supposed to be always accessible. But if you’re in a position where you are your business or you’re the head of your business, being available all the time can actually be counterproductive. First it creates so many interruptions that it’s hard to do your job, and, just as importantly, people will respect you more if you’re not always available. Not being available every five seconds or every time somebody calls sends the message that you're busy and you have other clients, which is usually taken as a good sign. It sends the message that you are good and don’t depend on this particular client. So your clients are actually more likely to respect you.

Q: What do you find to be the most common mistakes that people make when it comes to managing their time?

A: The most common mistake people make is not managing interruptions. It’s letting them happen whenever and however they happen, letting them last the time they last without keeping an eye on the time or the other things you need to do. It’s things like letting yourself be interrupted by a coworker who just wants to make a social call when you have work to do; or letting a conversation last longer than necessary; or when you objectively don’t have the time to listen to the caller for a half hour and still stay on the phone. There are a lot of ways to manage this gracefully so the person on the receiving end doesn’t feel like they’re being rejected or uninteresting.

Q: And if you get interrupted by IM or Skype should you just turn it off?

A: There are moments when you do want to turn it off. If you really want or need to focus, you want to turn them off – and your phone and your email. Once you’re done, you can turn them back on, but it will have given you time to focus.

Q: But there is definitely that anxiety that you know, what if you miss something important. Is that largely irrational?

A: Yes, it is very largely irrational because the majority of email or phone contacts are of low urgency and importance – they can wait for a moment, if only an hour. People can check it for themselves by monitoring their email and their calls. Most messages can wait, even if for just one hour. Very few and far between are the true life and death, drop dead now emergencies. Obviously, in some jobs they’re more common. For instance, if you’re working for the White House or if you're in crisis control PR, you will obviously have to respond really fast. But for the vast majority, true emergencies are very few and far between. Besides, if someone really needs to talk to you now, they’re going to email you, then call you on your land line, then your cell phone.

Q: What are the most common mistakes people make when it comes to working with their executive assistants?

A: Not giving a clear deadline; not giving a clear notion of the priorities; and not giving complete instructions. If you tell someone "I need this tomorrow," tomorrow could be nine o’clock, or tomorrow could be 5pm. Those are two very different times and the assistant is left to guess which one it is, which could be a problem. Also, if instructions are missing, they are left to guess, can misunderstand and end up doing something different from what you wanted.

Q: If there was one piece of advice you could give to a small business owner, something that would be useful for everyone in that type of situation, what would it be?

A: It would be two things. The first one: every day pick an hour during which you turn off phone, email, IM, everything, and then close your door. Every day, for one hour, focus just on your work, without interruption. That’s going to be your most productive time of the day. The other is, take a step back from your business and look at how you’re doing things on a day-to-day basis. As small business owners, we often start doing things because we need to, and we find a way to do things on the fly the first time, then keep doing them the same way, but it’s not necessarily the most efficient or most effective way of performing this task. Sometimes small changes in your processes and your procedures make a huge difference in both your efficiency and effectiveness.

Q: Can you give us an example of that?

A: Let’s take a simple example and assume that you travel often for business. There is a list of things you need to do every single time, such as make reservation for your plane, making sure that you give your frequent flyer #, your preferences, etc.; then reserve a hotel; pack your things, etc. If you just go ahead and recreate all the steps every time, chances are that you’ll forget something (get your frequent flyer miles credited, for instance), and it’ll take you a while to get it all done. On the other hand if you take the time to write down a checklist of all the things you need (including phone numbers and frequent flyer miles) in order to organize your trip and for you to make sure that you have everything you need on your trip, the whole process becomes a no-brainer. It's done faster, you’re not forgetting anything, and even better, you can give your checklist to someone else and they can do it for you, mistake-free.

Q: That does leave more time for everything else.

A: Absolutely!