In this era of ‘information overload’ and ‘noise all around’, whether be on social media or offline mediums, getting some time to focus is rare. More often than not, a conscious effort has to be made to switch off all the sources of distraction and concentrate on the task at hand. It may involve doing some urgent activity at office, taking some time out for yourself, doing a piece of creative arts etc.
On a personal level, key to doing the same is to realize the sources of noise, cut them off and resist the temptation to turn to them for a defined period. For example, when I am engrossed in some focused activity during my office hours, I keep my phone on silent, all my online chat programs on ‘Busy’, close all Gmail, Facebook and other tabs in my browser and inform the people (who I expect might approach me during those hours) about my plan.
Organizations can also do their bit to facilitate this and increase employee’s productivity. I recently read somewhere about a CEO (sorry, I forgot the name of the company) who promotes this concept of having a ‘cone of silence’. Employees can place a ‘cone of silence’ on their work-desks when they want to focus on the present, the task at hand. It would signal to other colleagues that she is busy doing her work and would not like to get disturbed.
This focused time leads to greater productivity, creativity, satisfaction and calms us down to a great extent.