​Do you remember a time when everything in the office was paper-based and handwritten? When we didn’t have a constant bombardment of notifications from Social Media, group chats and emails? When we were task-oriented?

I do. I remember when I could come to work, focus on my tasks for a few hours and feel like I got things done. Those days feel long gone now.

It used to be just our calendars and emails sounding off to let us know when someone is trying to reach us, and then we bought smartphones. Add in social media websites and chat apps and our phones started to go into meltdown, and then we bought smartwatches. Now? Now, even our watches let us know when someone is calling us. It ends up being that every method of technology we own makes us more digitally available, and this – I feel – is stunting my own progress.

Technology has done wonderful things for every industry but I – like many others – have become distracted. Work is sidelined by a side-eye to the latest notification on a smartphone by my elbow. I pick up my phone in moments where I shouldn’t and it’s not just at work; it’s at home, too.

Notifications: They’re Killing Our Attention Spans

Ping. Ping. Ping. All day long, we get notification after notification to alert us to emails and conversations and status updates. I know that when I hear my phone, I feel the urge to take a look and it’s an irresistible one.

Recently, I listened to a podcast that spoke about our attention spans and how we can get them back. It mentioned the constant bombardment of notifications being a problem and it led me to think: do I ever feel truly focused? I know that I flick between tasks all the time, and when emails and calls come in I’ll stop what I’m doing to answer those and then try to pick up my train of thought again. The studies on the negative impact of this on productivity levels are prfound.

The podcast went on to talk about productivity improvement through focusing on tasks and implementing a time limit for each task on your list improves productivity. One thing that stuck out was setting windows of time to complete something and in between windows, taking a walk before for the next one. I tried all of this a couple of years ago and I know I haven’t got there yet, but it’s time to try again.

A Lack of Engagement

For years, I didn’t have an ounce of social media. I still don’t engage with social media in my personal life – I wouldn’t know where to begin with TikTok! Whatsapp then came into the equation and I now have groups of friends in a collective chat or ten and an iWatch that invites me to meetings.

All of this has led me to stop focusing where I should and instead, check up on what my team (St Kilda) are doing or what’s happening with my mates. And let’s be real here: St Kilda isn’t giving me great news, so why should I feel compelled to check in on them all the time?

What I want is to become more present. It’s important to me that this is an issue that’s spoken about; many people reading this are probably nodding in agreement.

I feel like talking about the lack of focus and the bombardment of notifications is important because it shows that while all this technology is great, there are still pitfalls that I’m trying to mitigate in my own personal and professional life.

Doing Better

What this all comes down to is that I want to be better at what I do, I want to be a more present, a more engaged Dad at home and I want to try and implement the techniques I heard in the podcast.

I feel like I had more peace in my job before the onslaught of pinging technology and I know for sure that I could be doing more in terms of delivering better service levels to candidates and clients. I am striving to avoid things slipping through the cracks and it isn’t easy to admit that I’m dropping the ball on occasion.

However, if I don’t highlight this issue then maybe others who are struggling won’t see they’re doing the same thing. There are things that we could all be doing to mitigate these distractions, and now may be the time to do it so we can be better examples to our kids, our colleagues and most of all, ourselves.

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