Posts tagged 'Success'

Do you face constant interruptions in the workplace? These attention management strategies will increase your success

In my corporate workshops, participants often ask me how they can manage all the interruptions they juggle during their days. They need a strategy to balance being available and helpful to colleagues, while still having undistracted time to get important work done in a thoughtful way. The suggestions below are excerpted from my latest book, Attention Management: How to Create Success and Gain Productivity - Every Day.

Research shows that we switch our attention every few minutes, on average. Often, it’s because we are interrupted by typical workplace distractions – a new email, a co-worker, a ringing phone. It’s difficult to apply our brain power in a meaningful way in 3-minute increments! This means that we’re not giving our best to our jobs, and it also leaves us tired, but unsatisfied at the end of the day.

Manage Interruptions to Avoid Being Distracted

We must have undistracted time to get important work done, so the first step is managing interruptions, or as I call it, “controlling our environment.” For example, it’s understandable to want to be helpful to colleagues, but an “open-door policy” doesn’t mean we must be available all the time. Instead, it needs to be more like “office hours” — clearly defined times when we are accessible to others, and other times when we are not (except in case of emergency).

These “do not disturb” times must be communicated to co-workers, because once they’ve said, “Do you have a minute?”, you’re already distracted. No matter how deeply we’re focused on a task and how much progress we’re making, the slightest interruption — such as someone calling our name — is enough to make all that momentum go “poof!” Then it can take several minutes to several hours to work up to the same level of concentration.

All of these workplace interruptions hurt your productivity. If you have a door, close it. If people walk through it anyway, and you reward them with your attention, this indicates to them that the door didn’t mean anything. You have to create boundaries, and then honor them. Otherwise no one else will either.

But even if you don’t have a door, you can still set some boundaries. Put on headphones or give co-workers other indications that you would prefer not to be disturbed. I love seeing the creative and funny signs my clients post on their chairs after our work together, such as:

“Please do not disturb unless it’s an emergency. Qualifying emergencies:

-I’m on fire.

-Oprah is looking for me.”

Preventing these interruptions in advance helps us to use our time more efficiently, and to also create an environment where we can focus on our most important tasks. Progress on meaningful work is a powerful motivator, and the more we do this, the more productive and satisfied we tend to be.

Discover Your Ideal Balance

It’s true that some jobs require more availability than others, such as human resources, customer service, and IT support. Remember, though: if you have other work that needs to get done besides being available to other people, you must create some of that uninterrupted work time.

Consider approximately how much of your work time requires thoughtful, independent work, and how much requires collaboration and availability to others. Make a note of the percentage split. It doesn’t have to be precise, just the answer you come up with in a minute or two of thought.

Then, consider how you might organize your days and exert some control over your environment, even in an open office setting, to incorporate an open (and closed) door policy. Your percentage split can guide how much time per day your sign is up or your door is closed. You must be vigilant, though. If your “do not disturb” message is up all day, every day, it will immediately lose its effectiveness. What method can you use to give your colleagues the message that you’re “in the zone” and would rather not be disturbed?

Considering these ideas may lead you to make some changes in your behavior.But even if it doesn’t, let these ideas “percolate” in your brain for a while. Allowing constant interruptions is probably a habit you’ve formed out of necessity. And it’s hard to break a habit you don’t realize you have. With the points from this article on your mind, you’ll become more aware of this habit of distraction.

-Maura Nevel Thomas

If you want to learn more about Attention Management, click here!

A version of this article originally appeared on maurathomas.com.

You can preview and purchase the book here>>

How long have you struggled with a goal or tried to achieve success, never to see it happen? Have you stopped to think why? There is a way to win, and it begins with a strong and positive mindset. Our newest release, 88 Days to Any Goal, shows that magic can happen when you're fully committed!

Why 88 Days?

Research has shown that people tend to work harder when they're closer to their goals. This means that with every step you take towards your goal, the harder you'll push yourself to get there. To ensure that you're taking necessary action, you need to set up a system that you follow consistently. It can take close to 88 days to fully implement a system, and during that time, the behaviors and actions you take will become habits. Those habits are what set you up for success. Here are three steps to help you get started:

1. Follow the Critical Few
When going after a goal, there are many good, trivial things you can do to inch forward. However, in order to succeed, there are only 2-3 things you must absolutely do if you want to reach your goal. How can you determine what these critical few items are?

Action: First, write down your objective, being as specific as possible. Next, list out all the steps you think you'll need to take to reach your goal. For each step, write down the daily habits and behaviors you'll have to follow. Finally, review this list and circle the top 2-3 things that are most critical.

2. Face Challenges to Your Goal
As you start working towards your goal, it's important to think about the road ahead and what obstacles you might find. When you are aware of potential challenges, you can prepare with possible solutions.

Action: Take a moment to write down challenges you think you may face as you get closer to your goal. For each challenge that you identify, write down a solution to help you through.

3. Plan, Do, Review and Adjust
Although it can be very exciting to start on the path towards a new goal, it's the day-to-day behaviors that will actually get you there, which means focusing on your plan.

Action: Make sure to review your plan weekly, make adjustments as you go along, and continue following it. Ask yourself if there are gaps that you can fill with activities that support your goal, and confirm that your schedule is focusing on those critical few items.

Start your 88 day plan with 88 Days to Any Goal>>

Unconventional companies turn traditional business practice on its head by using the element of surprise, questioning the status quo, and recognizing that both employees and customers want meaning. The Unconventionals gives you a peak at some of the simple practices shared by these rebel companies that have allowed them to change markets, hearts and minds. Here are four of them to help you get started:

1. Within any market, there are opportunities to shift or reinvent the market because there are areas that need disruption. Action: Think about your market - are there ruts where everyone unquestioningly follows what has always been done?
2. The change that you're trying to create has to benefit both you and your customers, and it should favor what your company does best. Action: Think about the role you want your brand to play in the market and ask yourself: What do you stand for (i.e. what do you give to the world that is unique to your company)? What are you taking on (i.e. what is the problem you're trying to solve for your buyers that creates bigger change)?
3. Within every market there is a segment of influential people who believe in changing the status quo. These are known as "crazies" - people who aren't fanatics about your products, but rather who care deeply about other things that can overlap with your company's purpose. Action: Think about your company's purpose - which group of passionate potential customers could you be helping out?
4. What makes companies unconventional is that they're willing to challenge how things have always been done. Are you ready to do the same? Action: Take out a pen and paper or dry erase board and start doubting what everyone holds as true. Imagine the possibilities and challenge the things that have made others successful. Think for yourself. Be unconventional.

Learn more ways you can think like The Unconvetionals>>

How many times have you heard no? According to Forbes, 92% of people fail to reach their goals. This means that at some point, we all try and fail. However, rather than accept defeat, you can make your dreams a reality by pushing forward through rejection. Doing this requires transforming your mindset and igniting your passion. Don’t wait for your dreams to come true – make them happen!

The 12-steps from Create Your Yes! can lead you to the path of success. Here are four of them to help get you started:

1. Make Progress Your Primary Target
A Columbia Business School study showed that people tend to work harder when they are closer to their goals. This means that in order to accomplish the big wins, you need daily wins to help push you towards your goal.

Action: Write down daily or weekly goals that are within your control to accomplish. Focus on making progress and you will reach your milestones.

2. Determine Cheetah Goals vs. Gazelle Goals
As you work on making your goals a reality, there generally comes a time when you find yourself making no progress, no matter how hard you try. When you make it to this point, you need to stop and rethink your strategy by determining whether you need speed, like a cheetah, or stamina, like a gazelle.

Action: Ask yourself what your ultimate objective is and what is required to make it happen. Creating a new blog post each week is a cheetah goal, requiring speed, while making a business plan from scratch is a gazelle goal that needs time and persistence.

3. Create the Way to Make It Happen
Following the status quo keeps things comfortable, but prevents growth and change. So to make things happen, you need to push past "business as usual".

Action: When taking on a rejected goal or unfinished task, erase what you know and instead focus on your instincts. What direction is your gut telling you to take? Then, explore and pursue innovation solutions - that includes giving yourself permission to try the impossible.

4. Bulletproof Your Mind
According to the Mayo Clinic, there are many benefits to thinking positively, including greater achievement, higher persistence, better psychological and physical well-being and lower stress levels. Changing your mindset from a scarcity mindset ("it's never enough") to an abundance mindset ("there are possibilities everywhere") will allow you to see meaning in both your life goals and everyday tasks.

Action: Think about a current goal. Is it built on integrity, creativity and enthusiasm? If not, what can you do to change this?

For the rest of the 12 steps to success, check out Create Your Yes!>>

National Be a Millionaire Day (observed May 20th) is about taking steps to turn dreams into reality by making plans for your future. And what better way to get into the success mindset than with the modern-day bestselling classic, Think and Grow Rich! Author Napoleon Hill draws on stories from Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and more than 500 other wealthy people to teach simple and practical techniques for achieving great and lasting success with nothing but thoughts, ideas, and organized plans.

Hill delves into a method for changing your desire for riches into its financial equivalent with these six steps:

FIRST. Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. It is not sufficient merely to say, “I want plenty of money.” Be definite as to the amount.

SECOND. Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. (There is no such reality as “something for nothing.”)

THIRD. Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.

FOURTH. Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.

FIFTH. Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.

SIXTH. Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night and once after arising in the morning.

To delve deeper into these principals, download the FREE Discussion Guide>>

For more on transforming your desires into riches, read The Five Essential Principals of Think and Grow Rich>>