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The good news: It\u2019s not just you unable to home in on work tasks during your 9-to-5. The bad news: No one in the office is able to focus anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The vast majority of U.S. employees are unable to stay focused on daily tasks, according to \u201cLost Focus: The Cost of Distractions on Productivity in the Modern Workplace<\/a>,\u201d a report from workplace and productivity analytics platform Insightful. Of 1,200 U.S. employees and employers, 79% of workers said they can\u2019t go a full hour without getting distracted from work; 59% couldn\u2019t go just 30 minutes without encountering a diversion.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a confluence of factors hindering employees from hunkering down to check off to-do list items. While the allure of smartphones is an obvious contributor<\/a>\u201462% of respondents cited phone notifications as a main source of distraction\u2014the biggest offender in distracting employees was actually other employees. Over 70% of respondents said people interrupting their work was the biggest contributor to tasks not getting done, a potential symptom of workplace \u201cyapping\u201d<\/a> led by sociable Gen Z workers.<\/p>\n Apps like Microsoft<\/a> Teams and Slack, along with email notifications, were meaningful distractions for about a third of participants. Meetings and frequent manager check-ins were also prone to derail focus.<\/p>\n Employers are already ruing the impact of these productivity killers, with one-third saying these distractions translate to five hours of lost work time per week, and another third estimating their lost time at closer to six to 10 hours\u2014up to 25% of the workweek.\u00a0<\/p>\n These workplace distractions are just one piece of the puzzle of a broken workplace culture that prizes looking productive<\/a> and dawdling over redundant, menial tasks above actual efficiency and collaboration, according to Annie Dean, leader of software firm Atlassian\u2019s Team Anywhere<\/a>. These collective distractions have led to 25 billion work hours down the drain among Fortune 500 companies, an Atlassian<\/a> report found.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I say, \u2018Why are teams wasting time?,\u2019 I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s intentional,\u201d Dean told Fortune<\/em> last month. \u201cI\u2019m saying we\u2019re in a system that, unintentionally, is set up to steal our attention, drag our efforts to wrong places, and make it harder to get work done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, it\u2019s not just chatty coworkers zapping attention away from important tasks at hand. While employers have the tendency to blame Gen Z\u2019s \u201cgoldfish memories\u201d<\/a> for perpetuating this culture of distraction (64% of Insightful survey respondents said lack of focus was the biggest challenge of working with the youngest generation), zapped attention is not just their problem. Concentration has been on the decline for decades, argues Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Atten<\/em>tion Span<\/em>: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIn 2004, we measured the average attention on a screen to be two and a half minutes,\u201d Mark told CNN<\/a>. \u201cSome years later, we found attention spans to be about 75 seconds. Now we find people can only pay attention to one screen for an average of 47 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n Increased job expectations<\/a> and the daily juggle of multiple projects have overwhelmed employees. As workers attempt to multitask, oscillating between responsibilities, they actually lose time to what Mark called the \u201cswitch cost,\u201d the time it takes to refocus on a project, which can happen every 10 or so minutes for multitaskers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Where was I? What was I thinking of?\u2019 That additional effort can also lead to errors and stress,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n That\u2019s on top of\u00a0 increased reliance on technology and digital communication, which has not only meant workers sift through messages<\/a> instead of completing substantive tasks, but also results in almost half of employees missing meetings and deadlines <\/a>because of buried emails, per an October report by Slack.<\/p>\n Neither technology nor workplace socializing are going anywhere, and some managers\u2014particularly Gen Zers bucking workplace convention\u2014are formulating solutions to attention span troubles by leaning into taking breaks and flexibility.<\/p>\n Australian mental health charity leader Milly Bannister, who runs a lifestyle TikTok account<\/a>, told Fortune<\/em> she doesn\u2019t schedule meetings directly after lunch, a time she dubs \u201cslump hour.\u201d Similarly, she\u2019ll sometimes take a siesta, or encourage her staff to do the same, even if it means working odd hours to finish up tasks.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you need to go home and then punch something out at 11 p.m. after you\u2019ve had a four-hour nap, go for it,\u201d she said. \u201cAs long as the work gets done it doesn\u2019t matter to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Bannister\u2019s solution to rigid workplace schedules aligns with what Insightful identified as the key to alleviating the impact of workplace distractions. Over four in 10 respondents said more work flexibility would help increase focus in the office, with nearly the same amount saying a four-day workweek<\/a> would accomplish something similar. Not only have early adopters of these practices seen increases in productivity, but they\u2019ve also experienced less burnout<\/a>, perhaps a herald for a new wave of workers eschewing the workday structure they see as broken and overwhelming.<\/p>\n \u201cI was not made to work nine-to-five every single day, I cannot focus for that long,\u201d Bannister said. \u201cThis cannot be the concept any longer. It needs to be more flexible than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nShrinking attention spans<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Revising corporate culture<\/strong><\/h2>\n