DISTRACTION EXPERIMENT

Interuptions are EVIL was the name of this interesting article I came across.  My last blog post was about how social media- blogs, tweets, facebooking- is so important in a PR professional's job today. 

This article is a perfect follow up post because it talks about the negitive effects those exact things can have on a career.  They can be total distractions and we all know this is true, as much as we are SO happy we get to tweet and facebook in our perfect PR corner office with the waterview (oh wait, nevermind, cubicle)without hiding the webpages from our bosses- Lets face it- it does take up way more time than it should.

You’re not multitasking when you open yourself up to constant distractions.  You are merely working inefficiently.


"Multitasking suggests doing several things simultaneously — but when the Tweet Alert or Email Alert or IM window pops up, that’s not multitasking: you’re either going to check/respond or you’re going to continue on-task… if you are going to check/respond, you’re temporarily halting your current work; if you’re going to continue on-task, which you probably should, why would you allow yourself to be so easily distracted in the first place?"


This article inculded an experiment that was done to staff members:

• Turn off ALL alerts for IM, Twitter, email, Skype, etc.
• Set aside 3 blocks of time to check/respond to email; say, 9 – 9:30am, 12:15 – 1pm, and 4 – 5pm.
• Use Twitter, IM, Facebook, etc. in single-purpose mode, i.e., use the tools uninterrupted, and when you’re done, be done.  Let’s be generous and say that “engagement block” takes up 2 hours of your day — you social butterfly, you.

Assuming an 8–hour day-  that’s 2 hours, 15 minutes for email; 2 hours for Social Media engagement, leaving 3 hours & 45 minutes for assignments including writing, research, meetings, etc.

The author states: If this post resonates with you at all, try the experiment for 1 week.  See if it makes a difference in your focus, results, energy, and job satisfaction.