Small Tips to Help You Stay Productive and Focused
Reclaim your focus, improve your performance, and make time for what matters most.
If you’ve ever found it difficult to focus at work, you're not alone. Surveys show that nearly 4 in 5 employees can't go a full hour without being distracted from what they're working on, and 60% can't go more than 30 minutes. And the average employee loses 720 hours a year to distractions, or the equivalent of about 3 months of work.
What’s distracting us so much? A survey from Insightful found that 71% of respondents cited other people, 62% cited phone notifications (personal and work), 32% cited email notifications, and 27% cited chat app notifications, like Teams and Slack.
While we can’t stop every possible distraction from coming at us, we can control what we respond to, and how we respond. You have the power to decide what you don’t engage with.
Here’s what you can do to maintain your focus and productivity:
Instead of Multitasking, Try Monotasking
When you’re stressed, it can be tempting to multitask in an effort to get more things done. But here’s the thing: multitasking doesn’t work. In fact, one study found that only 2.5% of people can effectively multitask. That means more than 97 percent of us are failing when we multitask, and attempting to multitask actually makes us less productive. Instead, try monotasking: focusing on just one thing at a time.
Try These Microsteps:
Block 30 minutes on your calendar for focused work.
Scheduling time for focused work prevents distractions from taking over your day.
Set a timer for 10 minutes and work on one task.
When it goes off, take a one-minute break, then set a new timer if you need to keep going. The 10-minute rule helps you break tasks into manageable time blocks, making it easier to start, maintain focus, and build momentum.
Practice Relentless Prioritization
We often think of attention as what we focus on. But focus also requires saying no—consciously deciding what doesn’t get our attention. What you ignore creates the space for what matters. When you’re intentional about how you spend your time, you can do your best, most meaningful work without burning out. Relentless prioritization means being intentional about how we spend our time – including what we choose not to do.
Try These Microsteps:
Each morning, write down your top 3 priorities for the day.
Set the stage for a productive day by identifying your most important tasks. Aim to complete those first before other distractions set in.
Identify one low priority task you can stop doing.
Are you attending a non-essential meeting, doing work you could delegate, or spending time on tasks that could be simplified with AI? Work with your manager to free up time for tasks that really matter.
Set Boundaries with Your Devices
A recent survey of American cell phone habits found that people on average check their phones 205 times a day, or roughly every five minutes. Nearly three-quarters of people can’t ignore a notification for more than five minutes, and 43% admit they are addicted to their phones. Think about being interrupted in your work every five minutes all day, every day. This ends up costing us a lot of time and productivity, not to mention the drain on our focus and attention. And other research shows that it can take us around 20 minutes to get back on task after an interruption.
Try These Microsteps:
Set your phone to grayscale to make mindless scrolling less enticing.
The lack of bright colors will be less visually appealing, which can help you pick up your phone for mindless usage less often.
Put your phone on the other side of the room or in a bag when doing focused work.
If it’s not in your line of sight, you’ll be much less likely to pick it up and get distracted. If you have to keep your phone on you, mute notifications from everyone except VIPs, like your manager or family.