All of us know that there’s a time and place for everything. There’s work time, and there is leisure time. But more often than not, we find ourselves distracted while in the office. We lose focus and this leads to “overwork, stress, and burnout”. The question is: what makes us distracted?
You might be surprised at this, but the answer is not your phone or social media. If it’s not those two things, then what distracts us at the office?
Fast Company says that there are two types of distractions that we need to worry about, and those are sensory or external distractions, and emotional or internal distractions.
As the name suggests, sensory distractions are things that we sense around us. It could be a ringing phone, the sound of two people chatting, the smell of tasty food, or whatever that’s happening around us.
Emotional distractions, on the other hand, are “the thoughts that make our attention drift from what we’re doing.” It could be something that worries you, like your bills coming, or it could be something that you look forward to like Friday night.
The problem is that most of us only focus on external distractions. It’s easy to blame your lack of focus on notifications and interruptions.
However, according to UC Irvine’s Gloria Mark, we’re just as likely to interrupt ourselves as get interrupted by something external. As Goleman puts it, “It’s not the chatter of people around us that is the most powerful distractor, but rather the chatter of our own minds.”
Know more about these distractions and how to handle them over at Fast Company.
(Image Credit: FirmBee/ Pixabay)