If you make it through this story without checking your phone, Facebook, email, or other news sites... pat yourself on the back. Studies show technology is more than a distraction - it can drain brain power, reduce productivity and harm relationships. Bay of Plenty Times Weekend reporter Dawn Picken spoke to local super-achievers and other successful individuals about whether and how they stay focused while the digital world beeps, buzzes and pings for our attention.
Beating the New Normal
Before researching this story, I checked email. Then Facebook. Then two other work email addresses. I don't need an expert to tell me this is not productive - it's procrastination. Distraction is the new normal. One study claims adults' attention spans shrank from an average of 12 seconds to eight seconds between the years 2000 and 2015. The culprit: technology. Multi-tasking is a misnomer because research shows doing two things at once means each task suffers. A University of California at Irvine study found a typical office workers gets just 11 minutes between interruptions, while it takes an average of 25 minutes to return to the original task after an interference.
This is why management experts, including the author of a recent book called Deep Work - Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World argue most serious professionals should quit social media and we should all practice being bored. Professor Cal Newport defines deep work as "professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit." The efforts create new value, improve skill, and are hard to replicate. How, as Newport says, can we leave the distracted masses to join the focused few?
I talked with a half-dozen local professionals and an athlete to learn how, when and where their best work happens. How do they stay on-task? Which lessons could we apply to our own lives?
Tom Rawstron is at work when we meet. The 18-year-old wears a black singlet and shorts as he wedges himself into a standing leg curl machine at the Adams Centre for High Performance in Mount Maunganui. Both sides are piled with 25kg of weights. "In the winter, you really want to stack it up and build a good foundation with your training," he says. Rawstron's like a master craftsman who spends hours concentrating. Instead of fabricating furniture, he's building muscle, speed and mental strength.
His long-term goal is the World University Games in 2019. For now, he's prepping for his first year of open men's long jump. "I'd really like to win that. Also, I would really like to break the men's under-20 record next year." The record is 7.68m. Rawstron's personal best is 7.26m.
The NZ Secondary Schools 2016 champ lives in Tauranga, works at a Papamoa Liquor store up to 40 hours and trains 10 times per week, spending 20 hours between gym sessions and the track. Rawstron says his biggest distraction used to be social media.
"I think the most important thing is making good habits, because if you start off on the wrong foot, it's hard to get back to what you wanted to do." While many of his peers are continuously scanning and posting to Facebook, Instagram and other sites, Rawstron says he checks email and news in the morning and again at night. Otherwise, he leaves his phone alone unless he's looking at a screenshot of his training programme.
"I was quite addicted to Xbox and my phone and decided one day I've just wasted too much of my life on that. I'm so focused on my goals that I don't really see social media as a distraction anymore."
Rawstron lives with his mum, from whom he's learned discipline. "She's a real estate agent and really focused on what she does... she's a big role model to me and if I can have habits like her, I can be successful, too."
Passion and learning
University of Waikato management school professor Kathryn Pavlovich says passion, like the kind Rawstron shows, plays a role in allowing us to 'go deep.' She says self-discipline isn't enough. "If we're not passionate in our jobs, maybe we need to be looking at where our core purpose and meaning really resides. We all have times when we engage in those distractions, but we're looking at the continuum here, and where it's ongoing, it's clearly an issue."
While universities encourage the use of technology, Pavlovich sees students in lectures with laptops who may be using them to take notes, or to scroll social media. "If you're on Facebook, I know you're not fully engaged in listening to me or your fellow classmates. It comes down to personal responsibility and respect, too."
Studies have shown multi-tasking is a drain on not only attention, but also on happiness. Pavlovich cites a Harvard study that found about half our thoughts are unrelated to what we're doing in the moment. "We're worrying, ruminating, stressing. We're just distracted."
She says one proven way to train the mind to focus is through regular meditation, or mindfulness practice. "I do my best each morning to do 10 minutes of meditation or yoga and set my intention for the day of what do I want to achieve and that definitely does help. The most exciting and encouraging thing is lot of these young people are really aware of being mindful, whereas me and my generation, it took us a really long time."
Sometimes, digital distractions provide refuge for perfectionists who shoulder self-doubt. Author Newport argues it's safer to comment on culture [via social media] than to try to wrestle our own work into something better. He writes, "If you're willing to "struggle to deploy your mind to its fullest capacity to create things that matter" you'll discover that depth generates a life rich with productivity and meaning."
At Paul and Sass Innes' Mount Maunganui studio, you'll find a large whiteboard, two pinboards, soft of lighting and two guitars hanging from dark blue walls. Music plays on vinyl records throughout the day. The pair run creative agency Two Seats Studio from the home they share with their two children, ages 3 and 4.
"One of us looks after the kids, and one works. We stop for lunch, because we still prioritise lunch and dinner together as a family... I find it amazing to be home and be working with them." Paul says he wakes around 5am, goes for a walk at 6, and might stop work for the day at 7:30pm. Or 10 o'clock. Having children, he says, pushed time management higher on his priority list. "We had to really lock that s*** down."
The couple map out projects (they're producing motion graphics and video for Tarnished Frocks and Diva's Zoetica production), spending two hours or more at once on pressing projects and smaller chunks of time on other assignments. "We make sure we're giving everything a little bit of water. You just gotta hold yourself accountable. A lot of it is a hard slog, but you've got to be pretty passionate if you want to follow something through by yourself." Paul says making work fun is easier when you like your office. "You've got to make a space that's really fertile ground for your projects to grow. The environment is a massive part for me. I couldn't do a shared workspace."
He limits personal technology use mostly to email and has a method for starting creative endeavours. "I'll set a 30-minute timer and get off the internet. I turn everything off and only do work while the timer is on. After that, I can have a look around, and when time is up, I kinda don't want to. It's a strategy that works when I'm dragging the chain." Paul says knowing social media can be disruptive allows people to take ownership and limit browsing. "I enjoy what I do, so it's not a problem."
Making a list
Tauranga consultant Adrienne von Tunzelmann provides contrast to the head-down school of productivity. Von Tunzelmann is principal consultant of public policy, strategy and governance firm MDL. Her initial response when I emailed her was she wasn't sure she'd be a good subject for my theme. "I'm really more of a counter-case," she wrote. "I'm hopeless at managing distractions (at least in the conventional sense), despite being a bit of a junkie for tips on how to do better. I try to convince myself it's how I get so much done!" Von Tunzelmann says distractions are often too interesting to ignore. She relies on to-do lists. "Although often the urgent prevails over the important."
When we speak via phone, von Tunzelmann walks me through an average work day, which involves rising at 6:30, feeding cats and tidying the house. "I cannot leave the house with tasks, normal household chores not done... wiping down the bench, noticing a spot on the carpet that needs sponged off just before you leave..." She believes multi-tasking is a necessity and a natural instinct for women.
Adrienne's long CV is filled with responsibilities and distinctions befitting an achiever. She's served on government and non-profit boards and trusts including Pharmac, Age Concern NZ and the Tauranga Community Housing Trust. She was president of the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce, trustee of the University of Waikato Foundation and Chair of the NZ Women's Refuge Foundation.
Much of her work happens via email, and although many time-management experts recommended checking inboxes just two or three times each day, Adrienne says that doesn't suit her. "There are days when I've done literally nothing but write and respond to emails. That's how we get things done." Rather than viewing requests as distractions, von Tunzelmann sees them as part of her job.
For big projects, she can retreat to her office, though it would be rare for von Tunzelmann to shut off everything. "I work late and on weekends, rather than say I'm absolutely not available today. It doesn't feel like an imposition." She laughs when she tells me her husband asks which part of sleep she'll sacrifice when she accepts a new project. Not having a fixed plan has allowed her to tackle challenges and accomplish objectives she may not have otherwise considered. "No one formula works for everybody."
Skipping social media
Author Cal Newport provides examples of productive professionals who either abstain from social media for weeks or months to meet deadlines, or refrain from it altogether. Dr Logan Bannister prefers the latter camp. The Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology head of student support opts to keep her private life private. She has a LinkedIn profile for work and communicates with friends via email, text or phone. "It's more meaningful and not so generic. Anything I do, work or private, I want to give it meaningful attention. I would prefer the technology I interact with to be a tool rather than drive my life." She's raising two teenage daughters (ages 15 and 17), in addition to managing about 100 staff members during a merger and restructuring at Toi Ohomai. "There's no separation between work and my private life anymore. I fit things in where I can. If I'm taking my daughter to netball and she has a half-hour warm-up, I make calls during that time, but once the game starts, I try to be really present in the moment at any given time."
Bannister says she tends to wake up at five in the morning, checks email and revisits her calendar. She too, likes lists and was forced to create a system that allowed her to work full-time, write her PhD and raise her then 5 and 6-year-old children on her own. "I had to spit out work really quickly. Working women tend to be quite highly organised, and I don't have a problem with deadlines."
Back at the High Performance Centre, Thomas Rawstron is practising power jumping - up, not out. He runs, then swings his arms and both legs in tandem to leap three hurdles in one go. He says his coach and his routine have helped him make major gains the past year. "I'm devoted to it, because I've improved by half a metre and it's just made me want it even more."
Priority Quadrants
Tauranga executive/career coach and trainer Ciska Vogelsang refers clients to the Eisenhower Matrix to help them prioritise tasks according to urgency and importance. The matrix, popularised by Stephen Covey in his 1994 book, First Things First, has become a standard time management tool.
Vogelsang says, "It's really important for people, if they get up and go to work, to do something first that is important to you but not urgent." She says successful people spend a lot of time on those tasks, whereas activities in the non-urgent, non-important quadrant (such as internet surfing and TV watching) provide distraction without satisfaction. "It's crucial to know at what point those activities turn from being useful to being an entire waste of time. Sometimes it's useful to have a look on Facebook to keep in touch, but when you're still there a half hour later, scrolling mindlessly, then it becomes wasted time, and do you feel good about that?" Author Cal Newport writes, "A workday driven by the shallow, from a neurological perspective, is likely to be a draining and upsetting day, even if most of the shallow things that capture your attention seem harmless or fun."
Vogelsang recommends keeping a time journal for a week. "We might think we know what we do with our time, but the reality can be very different."
She recommends organisations set email policies so staff know they can work for a certain amount of time without feeling obligated to reply. "Emails in their essence are never urgent. If something's urgent, there's the phone."
Tips for Going Deep
-Set aside time each day for deep work. Block out 90-minute chunks to ensure you can ease into a state of deep concentration -Or use the 'journalistic philosophy' grab whatever time is available to write, plan, etc... -Create rituals such as a pre-work walk -Find a space for deep work where it's easy to disconnect from the internet -Shut down for the night because downtime aids insights; helps recharge energy needed to work deeply; and evening work in lieu of downtime is not usually that important -Schedule distraction -Keep blocks of time free from internet use, even when not working, to improve your concentration training -Schedule every minute of your day, while also allowing for deviation from plan when insight strikes -Stop working at a preset time (like 5:30pm). A cap on the workday keeps us focused