How to Conquer 5 Common Workplace Distractions
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Everyone wants to be a productive employee, but some people are better at maximizing their efficiency than others. Sometimes you might even be aware you’re being distracted from the job at hand, but you feel powerless to stop it.



You know how it goes: you drive to work sorting through a mental checklist of tasks for the day, convincing yourself you’ll definitely get all or most of them done, but things change when you actually sit behind the desk. By the time five o’clock rolls around, you realize you got next to nothing done. Here are five common distractions that might be holding you back, along with five ways to overcome them and be as productive as you know you can be.





Feeling Tired



Whether you feel like taking a nap at your desk because you stayed up until three in the morning binging on Netflix, or just because you have a cold, making sure you get a full eight hours of sleep the next night is the best way to combat this distraction. Of course, getting more sleep is a very obvious solution, but you might not realize how important it is.



Feeling tired doesn’t only lead to a loss in your motivation, but it also makes you irritable and incapable of focusing at all. You’re also much less likely to be susceptible to those annoying, energy-sapping colds if you come in to work with a good night’s rest every morning. If you can’t avoid staying up late for whatever reason, at least make sure you stay well-hydrated. A little dehydration can be enough to make you sluggish. Think about keeping a water bottle at your desk to avoid this common problem.



Jealousy of Coworkers



Maybe you’re sick of seeing yourself getting bypassed for raises or — especially around this time of year — maybe you can’t focus when you know one of your co-workers was lucky enough to spend the week relaxing in Ocean City. Either way, it can be demoralizing to feel like you’re always getting the short end of the stick.



While wondering why you should even try anymore can be a major distraction, but with some positive thinking, you can turn it into one of your biggest motivators. Don’t look at pictures of coworkers at the beach and feel helplessly trapped in your cubicle. Instead, think in real steps what you have to take to be able to do the same as them. Hint: none of the steps should involve feeling sorry for yourself.



Technological Distractions



Staying focused is pretty difficult when you feel your phone vibrating every five minutes or so. When you’re receiving texts or emails, you risk missing out on some potential critical work-related updates if you just leave your phone on silent all day.



However, you don’t have to take an all or nothing approach when using your phone. There is a middle ground between leaving it turned off in your pocket and compulsively checking it every few minutes. If you need to focus on a task, it’s okay to put your phone on silent and finish what you need to get done. Consider checking your phone regularly at hourly intervals and promptly putting it away if there aren’t any messages that you need to respond to. This way you’ll stay updated, but also won’t be tempted to just check Facebook.


Talkative Coworkers



It’s Monday morning, you have a project to finish before a big meeting that afternoon, but then you hear it. A flitter of laughter down the hall. The steady approach of footsteps. There’s no escape. Not even overt nonverbal cues and more than a few recitations of “Well, I got a lot of work here…” can save you. You’re going to hear everything about someone’s kid’s soccer tournament this weekend, be bored to tears and be completely and inexorably distracted.



If this keeps happening to you, you probably worry a lot about harming a sensitive coworker’s feelings by shutting down these unwanted conversations. But there’s nothing rude about being clear that you don’t have time to talk. If you notice that you’re the only one on the receiving end of these stories there’s a good chance everyone else in the office was already forthright with the blabbermouth. Also consider laying down some ground rules with the rest of the office about things that can be sorted out via email versus things that need to be addressed in person.



Getting Stressed Out



Even if you do minimize external distractions, there’s still a chance you’ll fall victim to internal ones. During the quest to being as productive as possible, you may forget that it is okay and even necessary to take a break every now and then. Of course, taking a break to browse the internet might only lead to more distractions, but taking a break to do something like reflect on what you’ve accomplished so far and what you still need to do can help can help you avoid feeling overwhelmed.



Though you’ll probably never be able to eliminate all of your workplace distractions, it still is worth it to identify what your biggest ones are and to work towards minimizing those. You still might have some pesky coworkers interrupting you to show off some beach pictures, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend the next half hour after they’re gone wasting time online.



Want to bust through some more of those bad workplace habits? Visit our series, “Bad Habit Slimdown” to get the skinny on coping with bad habits at work.