I run a business. I lead a team that wrestles with efficiency and empathy in the age of constant connectivity. We work with clients who expect immediate responses.
Perhaps the only difference: I've devoted my career, education, thought space, and financial resources to this challenge – so much so that I've coined a term to describe the goal of turning our attention resources into productivity. Focus-wise is what we should strive for, in work and in life. And I don't just believe this; I've made it a cornerstone of my business.
Focus wisdom is the difference between the strain of Harry and the satisfaction of Jack, between surrendering to distraction and mastering it. Between managing employees and inspiring them. Focus wisdom is a blueprint for organizational success.
This book is broken into seven sections, each section representing an aspect of the workplace that is affected by distraction. They can be read in sequence or mixed and matched to suit your needs:
• Section 1, Nobody's Working, outlines the nature of distraction in the constantly connected workplace, its hidden costs, and how we can start to address it.
• Section 2, Finding Focus, discusses the possibilities and limitations of our brain's ability to focus, including surprising truths about multitasking.
• Section 3, Focus-Wise Space makes a case for walls (literal and figurative) as a path to focus and explains the secret to Jack's success: the vault.
• Section 3, Focus-Wise Technology, describes our love–hate relationship with tech, how it can help promote focus, and the pros and cons of monitoring your people.
• Section 5, Focus-Wise Communication, unpacks the shortcomings of digital communication and how face-to-face connection can make all the difference.
• Section 6, Focus-Wise Workday, presents an alternative to the myth of work-life balance, explores useful delineation and delegation, and offers tips for extending focus and capacity.
• Section 7, Focus-Wise Leadership explores three questions to determine proper focus, the secret of a focus culture, training that works, the power of emotional engagement, and the surprising cure for employee boredom.
Although shorter is better for a book like this, useful things can be left out. That's why I've provided a host of helpful resources for you at focuswise.com/book. Here you can consult a constantly updated repository of expanded content and practical advice.
If you're like me, you may want some personal and professional high-level reflection as you dive in. Journaling has been a tremendous way for me to begin and end each of my days in a focused way. There are reflection questions for every chapter at focuswise.com/book.
Plus, I have created a deep-dive video for each of the seven sections, providing a strategic way to frame discussion with your team about that section's content. Let's be honest – few people read more than 140 characters these days. Perhaps gathering to watch the video together will help start needed conversations within your team. From there, I hope they pick up/download a copy of this book themselves! In fact, check out the intro video as soon as you finish reading the prologue.
Finally, I know many of us are ready for practical solutions to this well-known (and personally played out) problem of distraction. You want ground-level resources to begin implementation of focus-wise solutions within your team or organization. Thus, you will also find pertinent and actionable resources specific to each section at www.focuswise.com/book.
What we are asking you to do in this book isn't easy: to rethink virtually every aspect of work today. From how you lead, hire, and train to how you run your meetings and even set up your office space. We are asking you to do the hard work so your people have a fighting chance to reclaim their focus and thrive in the constantly connected workplace.
The good news is it's more possible – and way more valuable – than you might think.
The power of true focus awaits you and your people. Together, we'll learn how to cultivate and maintain it.
Section One
NOBODY'S WORKING
Chapter 1
The Curse of the Overwhelmed
Twenty-two.
That's how many e-mails have arrived in the past 15 minutes as I've tried to write this opening. And because I indulged the temptation to check, I'll work longer and get less done today. I probably won't even realize it.
Been here before? Know someone who has?
You're not alone. Ask your people how work is going and you'll hear:
I'm burning it at both ends.
So much on my plate, it's crazy.
Putting in 14-hour days.
Sure, people feel overworked, but that's not the problem. We confuse busyness and activity with actual work, so what feels like overworked is actually overwhelmed. What's the difference? To find out, let's go back to my inbox.
Of those 22 e-mails, three were from employees, one was from a client, one was from a prospect, and five were newsletters or promotions.
The other 12? They were from people who were supposed to be working. But weren't.
These are friends who work in fields like consulting, accounting, medicine, journalism, and software sales, sending messages such as, “Where did you buy that Ninja blender?” at 10:30 AM on a Tuesday. Twelve out of 22 isn't bad – one study says 86 percent of the e-mails we get aren't critical for work.4
Most people don't think distractions affect their productivity. They are distracted, they say, but they still get to what needs to be done. As someone who has studied distraction for years, I can tell you that very few people are honest about its cost in their lives, and almost none have realistic strategies to overcome it. They think they're working harder and more efficiently than ever. But they've never actually worked less.
Since 2007 (the same year, notably, that the iPhone was released), the decline in employee productivity has been staggering. One efficiency expert says we can lose more than six hours a day to interruptions.5 Another estimates that these interruptions waste 28 billion hours a year, costing the U.S. economy nearly $1 trillion.6 A different study about multitasking – a mantra for many employers – found that it costs the economy $450 billion annually.7
While productivity has plummeted, connectivity – the extent to which we have access to one another – hasn't.
And with all that constant connection, the borders between work and life are crumbling.
In one survey, 87 percent of employees admitted to reading political social media posts at work.8 Other research shows that 60 percent of all online purchases occur between 9 AM and 5 PM and that 70 percent of U.S. porn viewing also happens during working hours9 (“working” from home?). And if none of that convinces you, perhaps this will: Facebook's busiest hours are 1 to 3 PM – right in the middle of the workday.
So