It\u2019s hard to maintain your focus in an office. With so many meetings to attend, drop-ins by coworkers, calls, emails, and countless other interruptions, it can seem like a miracle that anything ever gets done.<\/p>\n\n
But do you know who the biggest culprit often is when it comes to sabotaging your productivity with distractions? Look in the mirror.<\/p>\n\n
Interruptions are outside things that throw us off. Distractions are things we do to ourselves that derail us. Though sometimes, the two go hand-in-glove.<\/p>\n
At first glance, that employee who sticks his head in your door to pick your brain about something is an interruption. But not so fast! Weren\u2019t you practically begging for that disruption by reminding everyone of your open-door policy at the staff meeting?<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll zero in on distractions in this blog post\u2014with the help of a great book called The Distracted Mind<\/em><\/a>. But interruptions and distractions are closely related. In fact, I think if we were better at fending off distractions, we could see more clearly how to limit interruptions as well.<\/p>\n Focus is vital to achieving many of our most important goals<\/a>, but a pair of scientists at California State and UC San Francisco have found that our ability to concentrate is slipping fast.<\/p>\n \u201cShockingly, students could not focus for more than three to five minutes even when they were told to study something very important,\u201d explain Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen.<\/p>\n Focus is harder among younger people but the truth is that most of us are deteriorating, in a way that can\u2019t be blamed on old age. Scientists are discovering we\u2019re all having a harder time<\/a> paying attention, thinking things over, and taking decisive action.<\/p>\n\t\tOut of Focus<\/h3>\n