From Distracted to Productive: Finding Focus in a Hyper-Interrupted, e-Distracted World

From Distracted to Productive: Finding Focus in a Hyper-Interrupted, e-Distracted World

If you are like most people, you are drowning in distraction and e-distraction. 95% of working professionals report being distracted at least once daily (and many people in my live programs complain about pretty much constant distraction, especially at work.) About 25% of you look at your inbox 20 or more times a day, reading the same messages over and over again doing nothing with them. Many of you are spending hours on social media trying to impress people you barely know or don't even like. Heck, 13% of you are clinically addicted to your smart phones. (And the average smart phone user looks at their phone 150 TIMES A DAY! How often are you checking your phone???) And the average adult receives and attempts to process THOUSANDS of potential messages, advertisements, e-mail, inputs, tweets, and texts DAILY.

Because of this, many of us live a life and career rife with distraction. And we weren't brought up this way: 20-30 years ago, the amount of messaging we were receiving was significantly less. We are drowning in information, inputs, and distractions, without the proper skills to cope, survive, and thrive. It is easy to see why endless e-mails, phone calls, "stop by's", text messages, smart phones, apps, clutter in the office (and at home), traditional media, social media -- even family and friends are taking all of our time and attention, and killing our productivity and focus. If you let yourself, you could be literally distracted every waking moment (and it seems many people are).