Do you sometimes get distracted at work ? Who doesn't ? It happens to all of us. In our zeal to multitask, we sometimes forget to single process. Meaning that we don't actually get things done.
Distracted employees is costing employers billions is lost time. Also it can be very frustrating when you are trying to cross your last Ts and dot your last Is. It does not have to be that way. We are more in control of our time and concentration than we realize.
How to Avoid Distractions At Work:
1. Don't check emails as they comes in:
When you are in the flow of your work and an email arrives,you must step away from your inbox. This may help you complete an assignment you have been slaving over for day. That one email could throw off your entire aha moment. Completing your programming project is as important as troubleshooting why one out of 10 printer on the your floor is not working(some times programmers have to help fix printers). There might be exceptions to this rule but most of us know that these are rare.
2. Let it go to voice mail:
There are some calls that can wait. We all know who we work with and what is urgent and what is not. If you don't know yet, then you have to start to filer and get query your coworkers. Set a time to check your voice mail and maybe get back to some of those calls. Just kidding, we should get back to every call as earliest as possible. Remember ,that at our users are our friends. Without them we don't have a job.
3. To do list
Driving without a destination is a lost cause so is going about your day without a set of goals. Creating a to do list that is numbered in chronological order will help you avoid getting distracted because it is easier to recognize and complete tasks that are priority.
4. Can we talk later
There are some people who just need someone to talk to about non work related stuff(their dinner plans for example), don't let that person be you;but do it in a polite way.Politely say I would love to keep talking to you about this ,but I have to get my ABC out by the end of XYZ. Politeness is absolutely necessary in all realms of life.
5. Batch Related Task
It will be very helpful to work on related task in the same time chunks. I support multiple regions for application A, and I try to resolve all issues related to this application from all regions in a chunks of time. If I jumped around to another ,application B, before fixing issues with application A,then I might forget a region then I have to go back to application A, . Then I jump to application C and the forget what I was doing in Application A and B. As you can see this is becoming a mess.
Plan:
Priority 1: (2 hours)
APP_A
R1
R2
R3
note:When Done then go to Priority 2
Priority 2:(1 hour)
App_B
R3
R4
.
.
.
These tips may help you to avoid distractions at work but before you even start you have make up you mind to avoid distraction and stick to your plan.