Don’t let emails and social media distract you from reaching your goals

It’s far too tempting these days to respond to our gadgets but by doing so we lose opportunities to achieve productive goals.

Six minutes is the average length of time an office worker can concentrate on a task before checking email, instant messenger or social media, according to research from Rescue Time.

For those working in an open plan office, such a layout actually increases the amount of emails and IMs received by 67 per cent and 75 per cent respectively, according to research from Harvard Business School.

These digital distractions make it easy for the average person to arrive at the end of their workday and wonder to themselves what they actually achieved.

Unfortunately, digital distractions are not limited to the hours of 9am to 5pm. Research by Del­oitte shows 61 per cent of people report checking their phone within five minutes of waking, and within an hour of waking 96 per cent of people have checked their phone for activity. Essentially, people are setting their days up to react to other people’s priorities.

The world’s most successful and productive people are acutely aware of the trap of reactivity. As an antidote to this reactivity epidemic, these people have set time in their diary every week to reflect and reassess their priorities. They refuse to fall into the trap of being reactive and, instead, take control of their time.

Adam Grant, an American psychologist, author and a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania starts his week by identifying his priorities. For him, a weekly planning ritual ensures he doesn’t lose sight of his most important goals.

“Sometimes, I’d get totally focused on a work goal and I’d miss out on some ways that I really wanted to be responsive to other people. Then, on the flip side, I’d get totally immersed in helping somebody and a work task would fall off my plate,” Grant describes on the How I Work podcast.

“I just wanted to make sure that those two things, achieving my own goals and then helping other people, that they stayed on my radar.”

What Grant began doing was starting the week by asking himself the three things he wanted to accomplish and three people who he wanted to help.

“I do an informal check in on a daily basis to ask: ‘Am I making progress toward those goals?’

“I think it keeps me from getting stuck in the weeds of the one goal that’s happening to loom large at the moment, and it forces me to make sure that I’ve got my priorities in order.”

For Emmy-nominated comedian, bestselling author and Obama White House adviser Baratunde Thurston, having a weekly reflection is critical to his productivity. Sunday is his magic day for reflection.

“On Sunday I look ahead, I look back, I see what I said I was going to do, what rolls forward, and what is the most important,” Thurston says.

“Then, ideally, every day I’m making some time in the beginning of the day to do that on a daily basis. Quite honestly, that part doesn’t happen every day, but if I can do the weekly preview and even a couple days of that week to look more consciously at what are the most important things that I must get done today versus stuff, I just feel good if I did.”

Make an appointment with yourself on Monday morning to reflect on the week just gone and set up the week ahead for success.

Amantha Imber is the founder of Inventium.