From Your Mental Well-Being To Slumping Productivity

In this day-and-age, it’s very easy to get pulled in all manner of directions. With the advent of social media and our ever-growing dependency on smartphones, staying on task — i. e. solo-tasking — is harder to do than ever before, largely in part to work distractions. Frankly, this pandemic of interrupted work (a. k. a disrupted work) in offices, both in and out of the home, is impacting us in more than one way. But to fully understand the overarching effects of interrupted work, you have to flesh out the issue entirely; it’s not something that can be completely addressed in, say, a soundbite or Tweet. That’s why I’m keen on giving you a comprehensive, yet digestible rundown on how distracted work is as much a work-culture and economic problem as it is a mental health one.

Costing Billions of Dollars

The cost of distracted work has a very real (and equally large) price tag associated with it. As it stands right now, economists believe that the United States loses billions in “lost productivity. ” Bad sleep habits, fatigue, mental health issues, and yes, distracted work, all play their part in producing this jaw-dropping statistic. In fact, our social media use alone — which is one of the largest culprits of work-based distractions — could be costing the US economy trillions in the long run.

Safety Concerns in Some Industries

While interrupted work behind a desk won’t affect your overall safety in the office, the same can’t be said about those working in more high-risk settings. For example, factory accidents are often the cause of some sort of distraction. This can be something as simple as someone forgetting to wipe-up a liquid spill to a more severe mistake like forgetting to put up a “DO NOT ENTER” sign, alerting workers of a potentially life-threatening danger lurking nearby. While distracted work isn’t the sole reason to blame for the nearly 5, 000 at-work annually reported anyway the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it likely accounts for a sizeable portion of it.

Making Us Sicker

There’s a clear correlation between work stresses and contracting illness. As the body becomes more strained, your immune system is one of the first things to get taxed, making you more susceptible to incoming pathogens that could lead to sickness. And interestingly enough, one of the largest stress-factors associated with work is not having enough time to complete tasks — which, in many cases, is a direct result of interrupted work. Overworking (or playing catch-up on your to-do-list) can increase everything from risks of heart disease and diabetes, to sleep problems and even hair loss.

Taking a Beating on Our Mental Health

In a recently published study by Gloria Mark, a scientist in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, she and at her team of researchers — including Daniela Judith and Ulrich Klocke of the Institute of Psychology at Humboldt University — found strong ties as to how interrupted work can affect our mental well-being. Their results suggest that interruptions lead people to change not only work rhythms but also strategies and mental states. People who were once calm and collective could, and did, become frenetic and scatter-minded, due to the lack of focus their workday’s created. This radical change in mental state, too, seemed to only worsen with time. If interrupted work was not addressed, people continued repeating the same self-destructive, productivity-sucking habits, day after day. And when you consider the fact that our brains are quite elastic, meaning they can physiologically change under certain circumstances, these habits could literally become engrained in your brain. If that doesn’t sound like a disastrous domino effect, I don’t know what does.

Once you’re distracted, it’s a long road back to getting focused again. By now, it’s pretty clear just how bad interrupted work can be. But, however, it’s still evident that you can eventually get back on track — but it’ll take some time. In that same study from the University of California Irvine, researchers followed workers on the job and observed how quickly they could again “get on track” once distracted. The results? They found that 82 percent of all disrupted work is continued and finished on the same day. But that figure doesn’t exactly paint the whole picture. On average, it took about 23 minutes for those workers to find their focus again after each episode before they could work at peak operating performance.

How can we safeguard ourselves from at-work distractions? To avoid the many downward spirals associated with interrupted work, the solution is fairly straightforward: try your best to stay focused and level-headed at the office. So, how do you go about doing just that? Well, it all boils down to establishing a strong sense of self-control, boundary setting, and organization. All three off these complement one another, helping you to avoid the effects of distracted work.

Consider adopting the following practices and habits to avoid interrupted work:

1. Develop a mindfulness practice - People who put importance on meditation and mindfulness are not only calmer than those who don’t but more focused — in and outside the office — as well
2. Create boundaries during the work day - If you establish boundaries for your work, you’re, essentially, erecting gutter rails to help keep your focus on track; think about using internet browser widgets and add-ons that block certain sites
3. Stay organized and prioritize your notifications - It’s should be no surprise to anyone reading this that clutter creates chaos. . . and, thus, acts as a distraction itself; aside from clearing-out your physical space, use programs like Gwapit to centralize and prioritize notifications coming from their workspace apps.

Suffice to say that interrupted work is a problem that’s likely graced your office’s front doorstep at some time. It’s evident, anecdotally and scientifically, that having a distracted working environment can lead to a series of unfortunate events. However, you don’t have to succumb to that at-work loss in productivity and overall well-being. Address the problem at hand, embrace the abovementioned practices, and you can expect to enjoy many years of productive and content work to come.