How Much Are Distractions Costing You
You probably think you’re pretty good at multitasking. After all, you can text and walk simultaneously, right? Wrong! My daughter was doing this walking to uni one day, and didn’t notice the pothole in the road. She ended up breaking her ankle as she fell into said pothole! So, unfortunately, when it comes to multitasking, it’s more likely to cost you time and money than to save it.
A study conducted by the University of California, Irvine found that it takes the average person 23 minutes to recover from one interruption and get back to the task at hand. And if you’re interrupted multiple times, that number can go up exponentially.
So, how much are distractions costing you at work?
Let’s say you’re interrupted three times an hour. That’s an hour of productive time lost every eight hours, or the equivalent of losing a whole day of work every week. And that’s just for starters.
You will make mistakes if you constantly try to juggle multiple tasks. For instance, a study by the University of Pennsylvania found that people who were interrupted made 50% more errors than those who were not.
And those errors can cost you, both in terms of time spent fixing them and in terms of lost business. In fact, the AICPA conducted a study that discovered that one in four businesses lost revenue due to employee mistakes. You may even be passed over for promotion due to last-minute completion of work.
Research has repeatedly and consistently found that multitasking is not feasible with human cognitive functioning (Jeong & Hwang, 2016; Madore & Wagner, 2019). To take this one step further, in one study, only 2.4 percent of participants were found to be able to multitask effectively (Watson & Strayer, 2010). And most fascinating, Sanbonmatsu et al. (2013) reported that people who think they are good at multitasking are actually not good at it!
Sometimes It’s The Office; Sometimes, It’s You
Sometimes the distractions are not due to how your workplace is set up but how you use your time. When you’re constantly checking your phone or taking calls, your boss may not view you as fully focused on your work. After all, spending too much time socializing with co-workers or browsing the internet takes away from productive work time.
To avoid these distractions, you must be mindful of your time management and focus while at work. For example, when coworkers want to chit-chat when you’re trying to get work done, you can politely say that you’re busy and need to focus on your work.
You can also try working in a different area where fewer people are around to distract you. Finally, if the chit-chatting is bothering you, you can talk to your boss or HR about setting some boundaries with your coworkers.
There are less aggressive things you can do even in an open office that gets the message across, such as posting a sign near your cubical or work area, or if you have an office door, shut it and put up a sign that you’re focusing on work right now to make an appointment.
Next time you’re tempted to answer that text, check your email or chat with coworkers in the middle of a work task, think about how much it’s costing you. But, on the other hand, the thought of the cost might be enough to make you focus better on working. Distractions may cost your company a lot of money, but they also cost you in the long run if you miss out on important promotions, raises, or the respect you deserve.
