Businesspeople understandably are having a tough time avoiding the many distractions at work. They deal with phone calls, unexpected meetings, unorganized workspaces, changing priorities and annoying cell phones. But senior executives and managers say the biggest distractions are e-mail and the crisis of the day.
To avoid distractions at work, workers are getting to work early, trying to focus and closing their doors more, based on a global survey of executives and managers we conducted.
And the e-mail overload can come from both outside the organization from customers or from inside, such as from colleagues or superiors. “Email is a big distraction,” said one survey respondent. “Checking e-mails and voicemails frequently is a major disruption to planning time. It is often difficult to gauge which customers to respond to quickly and which to wait on.”
“I refuse to read e-mails that I am cc’d on,” said another. “There are too many e-mails. My staff knows that if it is important, they should either call or come see me.”
Issues around meetings also cause distractions to almost a third of business leaders. “Without a doubt, it is senior executives who feel that they must prove their involvement by requiring unnecessary meetings and updates on every aspect of a project,” said one manager. “Communication with a project sponsor is important, but updates to a half dozen uninvolved execs results in considerable wasteful and redundant activity.”
Said another: “The biggest distractions are internal meetings and doorway/water cooler conversations about organizational issues.”
Read the rest at CIO.com.