Studies show that people who multitask are less effective at their work compared to those who focus on one task at a time.
Research also indicates that distractions take up almost two hours a day for most employees, most of whom only spend 11 minutes working on a project before they become distracted by something else, after which it takes them 25 minutes to again focus on their original project.
So, in addition to affecting you at a personal level, distractions also have an adverse impact on your daily business targets.
Why do we get so distracted? Well, aside from the distractions created by others, most of us become distracted by thinking about the past, the future… any time but the present.
When you are in the present moment, you’re able to powerfully engage with those around you. For instance, when I used to visit my then 87-year-old father at his care home, I experienced two kinds of visits. In one, I was totally in the present moment with my father and there were no distractions. During those visits, we sat near a window overlooking a school and watch children play; this leads to deeper connections between the two of us. In the other kind of visit, I was distracted by phone calls and emails, or my father was called upon by caregivers. At such times, there was little bonding. In fact, a shorter distraction-free visit was far more powerful than a longer visit fraught with interruptions.