Deep work is overlooked.
For years, in the business sphere, multitasking and other chaotic ways of doing work have been blindly praised. Today we have multiple evidence that distractions are causing us to be less productive, more stressed, and a higher cost to our organisations.
Carl Newport recently popularised the term Deep Work and its importance to the workforce.
Deep work is the act of focusing without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Carl Newport
In this article, we are sharing 7 facts that are at the core of our mission – to make leadership calmer and work more enjoyable.
Even small interruptions 2x the number of work errors
Shifting from a work environment full of distractions to one where you can have uninterrupted slots of time, may feel strange in the beginning. Some people even reported feeling a bit anxious as they were not as responsive as expected.
Nevertheless, Ohly & Bastin (2023), in a study with 247 participants, demonstrated that fewer notifications lead to higher performance. When people are focused, it is easier for them to attentively examine and think their work through. This is consistent with other research that showed that interruptions as small as 2-4 seconds could double or triple the rate of errors.
As a leader, you can help create an environment with less distractions so your team can be more productive and achieve greater results.
With fewer notifications, people feel less irritated
Interruptions usually come with stress and frustration for not being able to answer everything, completing your main task on time, or always having to restart your train of thought. Thus, people feel irritated.
When you create an environment where interruptions are minimal all this tension melts away. Hence, you feel less irritated, just as Ohly & Bastin (2023) concluded.
Carl Newport also states that deep work brings more meaning and fulfilment to your professional life, and leaves you energised at the end of the day.
75% of people manage to get more done and are more productive when there are fewer interruptions
Reducing workplace distractions has multiple benefits for the well-being of workers and the quality of the work they produce.
In 2018, Udemy analysed the impact distractions had on employees. Their results show that when you reduce interruptions:
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75% manage to get more done and are more productive.
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57% are motivated to do their best.
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51% are more confident in their ability to do their job well.
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49% feel happier at work.
Ultimately, fewer distractions make work more enjoyable. You can considerably increase your team’s motivation and engagement simply by cutting off distractions.
Fewer notifications, less stress
People have to deal with dozens of notifications per day. Ten years ago, it was mainly email and messaging apps. Today, you also need to consider that most apps' success metrics are active users, so they try to encourage you to check and use the app throughout the day.
Thus, we typically have to deal with unnecessary information and stress from day to day. Our inability to focus on a task for a certain period of time is perceived as a great cost.
When you manage to eliminate these interruptions, focusing solely on what you have at hand, your mind will not be cluttered with different information. Thus, you will feel less stress as Kushlev & Dunn (2014) demonstrated in a study with 124 participants, where they were told to check their email max 3 times per day.
As a leader, you can give your team this type of instructions that will help them create deep work habits. It is important that you also self-assess if you are the cause of most of your team’s distractions. And if so, you can reframe your way of doing work.
When companies resort to multiple platforms to get work done, they end up switching between all of them nearly 1,200 times per day – which adds up to 5 working weeks. For people using more than 10 apps, Asana’s report determined that they could save nearly 6 hours if processes were improved.
This means we need software to manage and do work that has every key feature already built in and supports workflow in a way that does not require constant context-switching.
Having a platform where all information is organised and easily accessible can help people save the 59 minutes they typically spend looking for information in the company’s tools and platforms.
Besides, software that is user-friendly and intuitive will also contribute to fewer interruptions from colleagues. Research shows that people interrupt at least 2 people to find what they need up to 5x a day.
We advise you to look into the platforms your team is currently using to do work and evaluate if they are creating more chaos or actually supporting their work. Try to minimise the number of platforms used and, if necessary, create systems that keep information easily organised. This way everyone knows where things are when they need them, without having to interrupt their colleagues.
Companies can retrieve 58.5 billion euros annually if they cut off distraction
In 2020, Bialowolski et al. found that 93.6% of the annual productivity loss of a major US manufacturer was due to distractions. They even replicated these results with data from a company in Poland. The conclusion was similar: distractions are the main reason for productivity loss. This can result in an annual cost of 58.5 billion euros, as is the case for German enterprises.
The good news is that by promoting a focused way of doing work, your company can recover these costs and channel their resources into more valuable and critical aspects of their business.
Deep work can make 43% of workers feel less tired
Constantly shifting between different contexts and applications creates mental overload. As a consequence, people feel fatigued.
In a study by Qatalog (2021), with 3,000 participants, 45% of people say context switching makes them less productive and 43% say it is tiring to switch between tools and communications channels all the time.
When you do deep work, you only worry and think about the present task, hence you will have your brain in full capacity to problem-solve, do creative thinking, or simply be critical in your reasoning. It also becomes easier to focus on a single task or person.
By supporting your team to create an environment with less distractions, you will help them increase their mental space and energy to tackle complex problems. This can result in more innovative solutions.
Conclusions
Deep work makes you more productive, motivated, and happy at work.
To reach this undisturbed environment where work simply flows, you need to have software that supports you and allows you to spend your time with the actual work instead of “working about work”. Plus, people need to value each other’s time.