I am sitting here writing this Blog, with the TV on, with a football game being played. I don’t know who is playing, New York I think. I don’t really care. I’m writing a Blog. At least I am trying to write a Blog. In the next room my wife has the stereo on (utilizing Pandora – Michael Buble…I think…). I’m still trying to write a Blog. I could probably turn off the TV and close the door and get more focused on the task at hand, but that would mean that I would have to fully focus on what I am doing. I don’t know if I can do that anymore.

I think back to when I am in the office and wonder if it would be any easier to do this there. But then I think of how often my phone rings. I always have to answer it. I don’t know why. I immediately prioritize the ringing phone above almost anything else I am doing at the moment. I get very, very few calls that are ever worth the interruption, but when I ever do, I am usually answering them by the first ring.

I also think about my Instant Messaging. That seems to be going off all the time. Everybody must feel that they must be using it these days. It makes me wonder what we did before we had it. I can’t remember ever getting any  important information or messages via IM, but my hope springs eternal in that I will, so I always stop what I am doing to see what someone else wants on IM.

I also have a door on my office, but I seldom close it. It has a glass window in it so people can look in and see if I am there anyway. People have a tendency to stop by and just come in to talk to me. It doesn’t seem to matter to them what I am doing. They just walk in. Sometimes they actually bring work with them, as if it is work that is more important than the work I was already doing. Sometimes they just bring their coffee cup, which is obviously more important than whatever I was doing before.

We won’t discuss email at this point. We all have acquired an email habit / addiction that requires a “fix” at least every 5-10 minutes lest some critical spam-like solicitation sit idle in our mailbox beyond its freshness born-on date and we miss it. Have you ever been in someone’s office when they start reading and responding to their email?

Not seeing someone feeding their email habit would be like going to lunch with people and not seeing them texting or remotely reading their email on their smart-phone. You would have a better chance of seeing the tooth fairy than seeing people neglect their smart-phones for a full lunch hour. Besides, messing with our smart-phones provides us the opportunity to show everyone that we are with just how important we are and how crucial our input is to the well being of the business.

Are you seeing a trend here? We all seem to love our distractions. If we didn’t, we might take a few steps to reduce them, and focus more on what we need to be doing. I am just as guilty of it as everyone else, but I am trying to take a few steps to improve how I cope with the situation.

I have read that we become “dumber” when we multitask. The average IQ of a man drops about 15 points when we multitask. I actually believe this one. It means that senior management must multitask far more than anyone else in the company had even suspected. It also means to me that when it is time to get something done it is also time to turn off the IM, shut down the email and close the door to the office. I admit that you can’t disconnect from the world for extended periods of time, but the world can definitely get along without us for an hour or two while we focus on getting something done.

I think it is also time to reintroduce the telephone to the conversation. IM and email are not the media to use for conversations. If you have to reply more than twice to an electronic message, it probably means that the phone would be a better faster way to communicate. Use it once and get done, instead of innumerable electronic messages of one type or another that scream for our attention and distract us from what needs to be done.

We are goal oriented people for the most part. We like to work, and then see the results of our labor. I think my wife likes to mow the yard because she can see how good it looks when she is done. Many of my neighbors have asked me how I convinced her of this idea, but I digress a little here. The idea is to set smaller attainable tasks that can be handled within manageable time periods. This way tasks can be accomplished in manageable segments which reduce the opportunity for distraction and interruption.

These are just a few of the ideas that I think I will need to implement in an effort to regain control of my day, and to get better focused on the tasks I need to get done. They may work for you too. You may have some other ideas and suggestions as well. The idea is that we all probably could stand to reduce the number of distractions that we have to deal with as we try to conduct or business.

By the way, the football game is still on, and I still am not sure of the score, or who is playing, and the stereo is now playing rock-n-roll Christmas songs…..