Answer these two simple questions to determine if you allow irrelevant information to derail your productivity:
Question No. 1: When an email notification pops up on your screen, do you pause what you’re doing to read those first few words the new email?
Question No. 2: Do you keep your phone face up on your desk so that if it lights up you can see it?
If you answered yes to these two questions, you probably let irrelevant information slow you down. According to a Stanford study about multi-tasking, most high multi-taskers do.
Consider this: Are the first few words of that new email relevant to what you were doing before you glanced at that notification? No. The six words in that email notification are most likely not relevant to what you’re working on. (Okay, maybe 0.001% of the time that exact email will contain something relevant to what you’re working on.)
Or that message on your phone. How likely is it that that exact message is relevant to what you’re working on at the moment you receive it? Not very likely.
In fact, it is highly unlikely that any of the notifications that come through while you’re working on a project are relevant to the task at hand.
The Stanford study found that high multi-taskers are unable to filter out what is irrelevant to their current situation. “That failure to filter means they’re slowed down by that irrelevant information.”
Are you slowed down by irrelevant information? Here’s a challenge:
Turn off the email and text notifications on your computer.
Set a timer for ten minutes. (If the timer is on your phone, turn the phone over!)
Get to work on a project that you’ve been putting off.
How often do you look up at that corner for a notification?
How much does your mind wander?
Are you able to filter out the information that is irrelevant? Or are you slowed down by it?
Would you like to speed things up a bit?
Three easy things to do:
- Turn off the email notifications on your computer so that when you’re working on something you’re not slowed down by irrelevant information.
- Turn your phone off and over so that you aren’t distracted by whatever irrelevant information is lighting it up.
- Keep setting that timer for ten or twenty minutes and practice working for short bursts with irrelevant information filtered out.
Focus on what is relevant. The rest will be waiting for you.
