How
many people look back at the end of the day and say where did some of
my time go?
I
think a lot of people do that and there are a number of reasons why
we lose part of our day and don’t realize where it goes. The
availability of social media now is making it so easy to stay that I
am just going to get something quickly and then get back to work.
The quick check really isn’t that quick a check because you can end
up wasting a great deal of time either following the articles on
Facebook and the various links on Twitter. Yes, there two social
media platforms can really take a to of your day away from you
without you realizing where the time has gone.
There
are a number of companies that block both Facebook and Twitter from
being accessible through the business internet and it is only
available to those that there are part of their job. I have heard
some people complain because they think that they should be able to
connect to their social media at any time they want not realizing
that it is really taking away from their work time. There are even
companies that fawn on the use of a personal smart phone during the
work day and that is because that is another way of checking the
various social media platforms.
Another
distraction that is in the work place is the social conversations
that go on either around you and with you involved. These are
interruptions that take you away from your actual work and then it
takes me some time to get back to what you were doing. Yes, a
conversation may only be 5 or 10 minutes but then how long does it
take for you to get back and remember exactly what you were doing
before that conversation.
Email
can be considered a distraction as well as part of your job. What is
important is not getting distracted too often when you see that you
have a new message. In some cases the best thing to do is not have
the notify icon on your desktop so that it isn’t flashing and
letting you know that you have new email. If you can get into a
routine of checking email at various times during the day and then
dealing with all the messages at once you will find you will be able
to get more done throughout the day.
Yes
there are tons of distractions that can interfere with our work day
and we just need to figure out how to manage them. The social media
is one thing that really needs to be handled because that can really
distract you for a lot of time so if you are at work even if it is
allowed through the internet make it your own personal practice to
either not check it at all until you are home or only check it during
your lunch. Managing the distractions can be a challenge but
understanding what they are can make a big difference.
