Tip of the Week: 3 Ways to Take Back Your Day From Workplace Distractions

In today’s competitive workplace environments, productivity is at a premium. Although, thanks to our gadgets, the allure of the Internet, and of course, having to interact with people, working at the modern office isn’t without its fair share of distractions, which hinder productivity. Here are three tips that you can use to tune out the distractions so you can get more work done.

Active “Airplane Mode” On Your Smartphone
When you really need to hunker down and focus, having your smartphone nearby may not be the best move. Unless you’re an extremely disciplined individual, it can be very difficult to ignore the slew of notifications periodically hitting your phone. Yet, it’s likely that you need your phone for what you’re working on, like to access your contacts, calendar, and clock. One way to still access basic apps like these while eliminating the distractions of the Internet is to set your phone to airplane mode. When you’re done with your project, simply turn off airplane mode and any notifications that you missed will promptly appear, as well as voicemail messages.

Bonus productivity tip: If you use your smartphone as your alarm clock, use airplane mode while you sleep in order to avoid being awakened by notifications and even phone calls.

Headphones Keep People at Bay
By putting on a pair of headphones, you’re essentially communicating to the world, “I don’t want to be bothered.” Of course, not everyone will take the hint and you’ll still have a few people tap you on the shoulder to ask a question. Hopefully, the inquires will be essential and they’ll think twice about offering you their opinions regarding what’s trending on social media.

Using your headphones, you might be able to listen to music in order to help you focus better (if you use Spotify, check out their Focus playlists). Although, not every worker has this ability. Therefore, you can also try listening to white noise in order to drown out the noisy distractions in the room. If neither of these options agree with the way you're wired to work, then you can simply wear the headphones without actually using them for music as a way of communicating to your coworkers that you’re not to be bothered.

Schedule Times For Checking Your Email
If you’re one to keep your inbox open throughout the day, then you’re going to keep one eye on it while trying to be productive. This spells trouble for any project you’re working on because you’ll get slammed with notifications often and at random times. Actually, this applies to other forms of digital communication as well, like social media. Instead, try scheduling times throughout the day to check your email so that you can focus better on the task at hand. You can even take advantage of an email autoresponder tool that lets people know what time you’ll be checking your email. This way, people won’t wonder what’s wrong with you or their computer because they didn’t get an instant response. Remember, if it’s an urgent matter, they can always just pick up the phone and give you a call.

These tips may seem overly simple, but they’ve got the potential to enhance your focus and revolutionize productivity in your office. Try them out and let us know in the comments how they work for you!