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2 Distraction Aids: Time Blocking & White Noise Machines

September 14, 2010 By

The cost of distractions

As a manager, you know that distractions have a cost.  Usually it’s loss of focus/productivity, and therefore money.  A distracted worker is a disengaged worker.  Disengaged workers lose their sense of ownership in a project or task and also make more mistakes.  They usually suffer more stress and even miss work more frequently.  Sadly, disengaged workers also turn over faster, and training their replacements  is costly.  Add it all up and it’s a rather large price tag: $600 billion.  That’s right, distractions cost businesses hundreds of billion of dollars every year.

2 Tips for Avoiding Distraction at Work

To regain your workers’ attention and focus, it’s smart to enable them to have distraction-free solo work.  For many, time blocking allows for this.

  1. Time Block.  The basic idea is to cut away from all the turmoil in your office and devote a specific block of time to working on a project.  You set a start and stop time and during that period you focus on your work.  This means you shut down any unnecessary electronics and anything that rings.  You can do it, I promise.  With fewer (or no) distractions, you should be able to make some progress.

However, not all offices offer conference rooms for regular work, nor do they have enough rooms to house every distracted worker.  Another effective time-saver and productivity-booster is the use of a white noise machine.

  1. White noise machines.  By using white noise, you cover office distractions.  With a simple desktop generator, you can block out office noise and get to work because your mind is more focused.  You can hold a thought long enough to process it, and you aren’t drawn into unnecessary chatter.

Half the battle of reclaiming lost time at work is having a game plan.  By time blocking and covering noise, you allow your workers’ brains much needed-time to process and recalibrate.

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Sound Masking & Time Blocking

August 24, 2010 By

Are your employees disengaged?

Do your employees struggle to stay focused or to meet deadlines?  Most workers are distracted more than 2 hours every day.  It could be co-worker chatter, phone calls, constant computer correspondence, and the list goes on forever.  Regardless of the cause, most workers feel frustrated by the end of the day, having accomplished little on their to-do list, knowing that tomorrow will likely be no better.  For some, it’s a monotonous cycle of chasing a seemingly elusive goal or deadline, while for others, it means extra nights and weekends and less time with family and friends.  You can see the problem.

2 Tips for Increasing Focus and Productivity

Part of increasing productivity is making the office more work-friendly.  Here are 2 easy ways to do just that.

  • It's important for workers to feel like they have time to work and not to be distracted.

    Time Blocking.  Some go-getter, self-motivated employees will do this for themselves, but most will simply get caught in the rut of feeling unproductive and therefore living a self-fulfilling prophecy.  You should encourage time blocking for your staff.  Whether it’s an office-wide plan or open to individualization, allow your employees the opportunity to set certain boundaries on when they’re going to work on what.  For instance, it may be that the first hour of the day is spent checking and prioritizing emails and messages.  Then, the next 2 hours are spent isolated in a conference room for a specific project.  Or, it could be that certain teams need to meet at a mutually agreed upon time and they set up in a private room.  Whatever the routine is, every employee needs to know that he or she will have time to get to their actual work.

  • Sound Masking.  It’s one of those counter-intuitive things, kind of like children sleeping well at night often makes them more likely to sleep well during the day. Similarly, adding noise to a noisy office actually helps your brain focus.  By adding soft unstructured noise to the office, the brain is able to focus on that consistent noise instead of the millions of diverse, and therefore distracting, sounds surrounding them.  The result is more engaged, productive workers.

Regardless of the economy, workers are distracted.  So, in these tough times, loss of productivity hurts even more. Enable your workers to get focused by allowing them freedom to schedule out blocks of time and by decreasing office noise.

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