Do you ever arrive at the end of a work day only to be frustrated that you can't finish any of your work?
Chances are you've been distracted or interrupted at some point.
Either from a colleague who stops by, or sends you a little message…
…or hear someone talking about interesting gossip in the background…
…quickly opening a web browser to check the news or surf the web…
…check emails and chats…
…or even just wondering what might be on your social media apps right now.
You might think this isn't a problem, since an interruption is only a brief moment.
Like a wink, right?
Unfortunately, research shows us that every time we get distracted, it can take about 23 minutes to refocus on what we were previously working on.
Some of the most famous research on the subject comes from 2008, where researchers followed workers and timed all their activities, especially whenever they changed what they were working on.
Their research found that on average, workers interrupted themselves by switching activities or applications every 3 minutes and 5 seconds.
And the most striking thing is that it took on average 23 minutes and 15 seconds so that the worker can concentrate again on his initial task.
The researchers found that most of the time, workers were able to get back on track and complete their task the same day. However, because they now had less time to complete it, each interruption contributed to a greater sense of time pressure and significantly greater stress.
So interrupted people actually worked faster to compensatebut this led to more stress.
That's the problem with “task switching“, which studies have shown means that if you have multiple tasks to complete, it is more difficult and time-consuming to complete them if you are constantly switching between different types of activities and mental states, rather than being able to to accomplish similar sets of tasks all together, due to. switching costs each time.
Research has shown that responses and work after a task switch are likely to be much slower and more likely to have errors.
The impact of task switching was also revealed worse for tasks that are complex and therefore require executive function and rational thinking to accomplish, which is part of many modern knowledge workers.
Other research has also shown that task switching costs increase as we ageinterruptions may therefore impact more experienced workers than their younger counterparts.
Impact on creativity and innovation activities
The challenge here is that our human brains seem to be programmed to be distracted and interrupted.
This goes way back in our evolutionary past, where reacting instantly to hearing a sound that might potentially be a dangerous or deadly predator could be far more valuable than completing what our ancestors were currently doing.
Even medieval monks complained of being distracted.and they didn't have phones constantly bombarding them with notifications.
In today's world, where smartphones constantly give us instant access to millions of hours of content, there is no longer a situation where people need to get bored or get away from distractions.
And this has led to situations where people I hate the idea of being bored or alone in your own thoughts for a while.
Actually, 67% of men prefer to give themselves an electric shock rather than sit and “think”.
It's a shame, because getting away from distractions and letting one's the mind wanders it has been shown to help your creativity.
Not only that, in order to produce any creation or innovative work, people not only have to generate ideasbut also have the time and concentration to execute these ideas.
Task switching and a multitude of small distractions can cumulatively lead to a lack of time to solve complex problems and then execute to produce something remarkable.
So, what can you do to minimize the impact of task switching:
- Try to limit distractions and the ability for people to interrupt you: for example, set yourself as unavailable or “away” in chat systems, or put your phone on airplane mode.
- Block out some focus time in your calendar to do critical work: ideally for a minimum of 2 hours at a time.
- Get clarity on the tasks you want to accomplish during this time and what you need to do to actually accomplish them.
- Group similar types of work together and complete them together before moving on to other types of tasks.
- Be comfortable being in your own head, away from distractions and letting your mind wander
Creativity and Innovation Expert: I help individuals and businesses develop their creativity and innovation capabilities, so you can develop the next revolutionary idea that customers love. Editor-in-Chief of Ideatovalue.com and Founder/CEO of Improvides Innovation Consulting. Coach / Speaker / Author / TEDx Speaker / Voted as one of the most influential innovation bloggers.