Common distraction at work and how to avoid them

One of the best way to increase productivity is to eliminate distraction. To help you do so, I have listed some common distraction at work and some tricks to reduce these distractions

Let’s go :

Smartphone

When a new notification pop up, it is so tempting to stop our work and check it out due to our desire to always staying connected and our curiosity. But after checking it out, you may go on to use other apps in your phone without even realizing it and then hours gone by and you made no progress at your work. Besides, some of us have the habit of checking their phone regularly.

This is a big distraction for work.

• Use Pomodoro apps
  These apps will forbid you from using your phone or from using certain apps that you selected

This can force you to stay focus on work since there will be nothing on your phone that you can

“check” during your scheduled hours

• Put your phone away
  If using the apps mentioned above is not enough, you can just put your phone out of reach, so that you will have less tendency to reach out to this source of distraction.

Video games

With game design improving everyday, modern games offer a lot of visual and audio stimulus and the challenges that the games present make playing it very exciting, so many people are enticed to play games instead of working.

• Install your games on another computer
  Separate work and gaming account
  Quit playing video games

Unnecessary communication

While it is beyond doubt that communication is indispensable in effective work, unnecessary communication will distract you when you are working.

• Spend less time on emails, phone calls
  some great tips :

https://www.themuse.com/advice/how-to-nicely-train-people-to-send-you-less-email

https://www.ciphr.com/advice/email-overload/

Social media
Owing to the fear of missing out or fear of not liking your friends’ posts instantly, social media become another great distraction that people can easily spend too much time on and then get no work done.

• Log out of your social media account

• Uninstall your social media apps on your phone and only use browsers to surf your social media
  Using social media in browsers to access your social media is less convenient than just using the apps, so you will likely check social media less often to avoid the hustle

Chore

Doing things that is necessary to your daily life but not beneficial to your work will hinder you from focusing on your work, making it a distraction for work.

• Schedule block of time that you only work and do not need to do chores
  to learn about putting your time into blocks :

https://www.wikihow.com/Time-Block

• Work in a place that you don’t need to handle chores
  This is a good solution is your situation and your boss allow it

Noise
Construction noise, neighbors, co-workers, or machine noise, for instance, are some example of noise that will interrupt us.

• Wear Earplug
• This website contains some useful information about noise at work
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahlandrum/2016/10/25/how-to-cope-with-the-most-dreaded-part-of-work/#3f37f1a75d9e

Strong Emotion

Being too excited, anxious, or scared for upcoming events can occupy your mind to think about those things rather than thinking about how to get works done.

• To learn more about controlling emotion, check out this website
  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/modern-mentality/201802/10-tips-help-you-take-control-your-emotions

Random thoughts

Random thoughts crop up in our mind, like what to have for dinner, which TV programme should I watch, what my life would be if I don’t need to work. We may get caught up in one of these random ideas and use a lot of time thinking about it and not working.

• Write down your random thoughts that are worthy of giving thoughts to and deal with them later
  Therefore you don’t need to stop your work now

• Be mindful of your thought ( notice what you are thinking )
  If you are more mindful of your thought, you will be able to notice what you are thinking about and stop thinking about unimportant things and return to your work

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I hope this post can help you identify the distractions at work and therefore be able to diminish them for higher productivity. Comment below your biggest distraction at work !

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For more tips on productivity, you can check out these posts

1 tip that increases your productivity

9 apps that boost your productivity