Collaboration and communication are essential in the workspace, as well as social connections. But a balance is required between focused productivity and connectedness.
Meetings, email, real-time chat are all habits. And habits can be changed. Changing one keystone habit can start a chain reaction in how a team approaches everything about their work.

Finding the balance between focused productivity and connectedness

On average, employees who do the majority of their work on computers are distracted almost every ten minutes.
Most of the interruptions are external - an incoming email or a colleague stopping by to chat. But a significant proportion also comes from the individuals who voluntarily switch tasks.

Distracted every 10 minutes

It is commonly known that when our attention is divided, it's harder to get things done. What's surprising is that so few of us use this common idea in our workdays.
It's not just productivity that suffers when workers are constantly interrupted, but research found that people will attempt to compensate by working faster, leading to more stress and effort. Take email as an example. In one study, email was removed from a group of civil workers for five days. Workers stress reduced over that time, and they reported feeling more in control of the workday.

Dividing our attention makes it harder to get things done

For many corporations, task switching has become a requirement of the job.
<ul>
<li>One study points out that time spent on collaborative activities has increased by 50% over the past two decades.</li>
<li>Open office floor plans are still common, but the interruptions make it difficult for teams to get work done.</li>
<li>One survey shows that workers spend an average of six hours on email a day.</li>
<li>Meetings still take up 15% of companies' time.</li>
<li>Slack found that people spent an average of 10 hours a day in the app.</li>
</ul>

When task switching becomes the norm

<ul>
<li>Set a maximum time your team spends in meetings. It can help your team rethink which meetings are necessary.</li>
<li>Have your team mark off time for deep work on their calendars. Hold that time sacred.</li>
<li>Have the team list the one important task they want to complete each day.</li>
<li>Limit email/group chat before a specific time in the morning</li>
<li>Make asynchronous communication the default. Delayed responses should be the preferred way of communication. It will enable your team to focus on their deep work.</li>
</ul>

Example of deep work policies

The workplace is overloaded with distractions. Here's why (and how) companies should protrect their most important asset – their team's attention.

Distracted every 10 minutes

Similar ideas to Distracted every 10 minutes

Statistics about multi-tasking