Is Your Technology Controlling You?

Don't become a slave to your technology!

Another day brings another opportunity for professional accomplishment—finishing that big project, revising the memo, facilitating a meeting and orchestrating follow-up… The list goes on. You get in early, take an energizing sip of coffee and sit down to begin. Before you know it, though, it is 2 p.m. and not one item on your to-do list has been checked off. Discouraged, you reflect on how your day was spent. Not surprisingly, like most American professionals, you answered phone calls and responded to flurries of emails from colleagues… and then it was time to go home. You feel disorganized, scattered, stressed and unproductive. You are not alone.

The Stats and The Addiction

According to an AOL online survey conducted in July 2007, the average person receives one email every two seconds and checks email five times per day. Fifty-nine percent of mobile device users admit to checking email every time a message arrives. Needless to say, in today’s technology-saturated environment, communication tools have become addictive, and like any addiction, it’s tough to quit.

As evolved as we like to think we are, we still fall victim to operant conditioning—modification of behavior through the use of positive and/or negative reinforcement. Like Pavlov’s famous dogs, we continue obsessively checking and responding to email and voicemail messages because, every so often, we receive positive reinforcement for our efforts. Plus, the fact that so many people are trying to contact us at any given moment fulfills a basic human need—to feel wanted. In essence, society’s technological advances have made us more primitive; instead of proactively influencing our environment, we have boxed ourselves into a pattern of reacting to what is in front of us.

The Diagnosis

Today’s information overload, our reactivity, and the resulting stress, confusion and lack of productivity has been given a name—Office Attention Deficit Disorder or Office ADD. In an article by Tom McGrath titled “Do You have Office ADD?” in a 2007 issue of Men’s Health, noted psychiatrist and one of the country’s foremost authorities on ADD, Ned Hallowell, is quoted as saying “Our brains are filled with more data than ever before… with all this information, people are presenting with ADD-like symptoms—difficulty focusing for more than a few seconds, tendency to have a lot of projects going on at once, trouble completing any projects, constant search for stimulation, trouble with time management and a tendency to procrastinate.” It makes sense: the more data we are inundated with, the more information we are forced to screen out.

The Myth of Multi-Tasking

If you were asked to write down the qualities of the ideal colleague, I bet “multi-tasker” and “works quickly and effectively” would be on the list. However, studies conducted by René Marois, Ph.D., neuroscientist and associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, are beginning to show that a faster pace and working on multiple projects at once aren’t always assets. Studies by others in her field seem to agree. According to Marois, “Our brains have billions of neurons, each making thousands of connections, and yet the truth is we can really focus on only one thing at a time.”

In a study conducted by Microsoft, Microsoft research scientists and University of Illinois professors collaborated to investigate how long it takes people to return to a task when they are interrupted by an email or instant message. The average? Fifteen minutes. Additionally, the researchers noted, “…when people finally do start working again, they don’t reach their level of earlier concentration for 10 additional minutes.” So, when you add that to the 15 minutes it takes to return to the task at hand, the minimum total time that can be lost by answering just one email is 25 minutes!

Curbing the Addiction, Improving Your Work Life

The information flow is not going to subside. If anything, as new devices are introduced to the marketplace, it will increase. Productivity (and sanity) in this environment can be achieved by creating systems to optimize information management. In effect, taking back control of your technology!

Here are some tips that can help put you back in charge:

• Try setting aside two or three specific times during the day where you read and respond to new emails. Depending upon your incoming email volume, you might need anywhere between 10 and 60 minutes during those times. Avoid checking for new emails outside of those hours.

• If you use Instant Messaging (IM), you might think about when you should logout of the program. You could set your status message to “sry ctn bbl” (sorry, can’t talk now, be back later).
  

• Consider designating certain times of the day “quiet time,” and turn off your cell phones, close your door, put your office phone on ‘do not disturb,’ logout from IM and work on projects requiring your full attention.

• Turn off your notification settings on both your phone and your computer so that you don’t feel compelled to check your email when you hear (or feel) the notification alert. Instead, you decide when and how often you want to check your email.
  

• Know your body’s rhythms. Notice when you have the most energy during the day and schedule that time to move your agenda forward by attacking your most important priorities. Protect these energy bursts by avoiding all activities that could distract you from your agenda—like checking for new emails, surfing the web and so on.

• Monitor your online time. Keep a log of where you go on the internet and for how long you stay for a day so you can get a comprehensive picture of time spent. Then, modify as needed.

• Change your software settings to stop bothering you. Software programs on your computer are also competing for your attention. Whether it is your spyware program showing you the latest infected files or Windows asking you to update, set these programs to run in the background or to work only when your computer is idle for five minutes or longer.

Last Word

Decide if you want to be in charge of your environment or if you want your environment to be in charge of you. By reacting to every email, voicemail and instant message, you are letting others drive your agenda—a surefire way to impede progress. Implement the information management tips and learn what works best for you. Then, define your daily priorities and deliberately work through them. Find a system that works for you; your new life will be worth it!

Is there a new technology you would like to learn more about? Have a technological question that you think others might have as well? We want to hear from you. Email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and tell us. Your topic may be covered in an upcoming issue of Optimal Impact!