Driven to Distraction at Work: How to Focus and Be More Productive

On top of that, many of us are being asked to do more with fewer resources, meaning we're constantly hurried and stretched, particularly if we're also juggling busy home lives. Before we know it, our most important projects and our biggest dreams fall by the wayside as we react to a barrage of incoming demands. We're left feeling frustrated and depleted. Our relationships suffer – at home and work – and our health can suffer too. Our productivity diminishes and we don't perform at our best, which means we have even less time and everything gets worse.

So, what can we do to seize back control of our lives, regain focus, and prioritize? We can start by taking a few hours out to read "Driven to Distraction at Work." This book examines the common blocks that stop many of us from achieving our goals, including addiction to the Internet and social media, idea hopping, and excessive worrying.

It explores the underlying psychological and emotional reasons why people struggle to focus at work, complete a task, say "no" to their bosses, or switch their phones off at night. And it offers a range of solutions to help readers train their attention and become more focused, which go much deeper than the usual time-management advice.

Who's this book for? "Driven to Distraction at Work" is for anyone who feels low on energy, short on time, and high on anxiety. It's for anyone who starts projects but doesn't finish them, has difficulty choosing what to focus on first, or feels overloaded and overwhelmed. Given the stresses so many of us are under, we're talking about a pretty big audience.

Bear in mind that the author is a therapist. He offers plenty of practical tips in this book – some original, some you'll have heard before – but he also explores the psyche, identifying patterns and attitudes many of us picked up in our childhoods. If you're skeptical about therapy, "Driven to Distraction at Work" probably isn't for you. But if you're open to looking beneath the surface and into your past, you'll get a lot from this book.

Hallowell is a child and adult psychotherapist and a renowned expert in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. He coined the term "attention deficit trait" or ADT in 1994 to describe what he saw as a growing inability to concentrate in the modern-day workplace.

Describing himself as a "focus doctor," Hallowell specializes in training people's attention and runs the Hallowell Centers in Sudbury, Massachusetts, New York City, and San Francisco. He's a New York Times best-selling author and a sought-after speaker.

So keep listening to hear how to cut down on screen time, how to look after your body and mind to improve your focus, and how to find your sweet spot, so you're happy, fulfilled and productive.

"Driven to Distraction at Work" is divided into two parts. In Part One, Hallowell identifies the six most common ways people lose their attention at work. These are screen sucking, or too much time spent on the internet and smartphones; multitasking; idea hopping, when we struggle to finish what we start; worrying so much it disrupts our focus; playing the hero, or fixing everyone's problems except our own, and dropping the ball, which is under-achieving at work.

The author introduces these six traits or behaviors through the case studies of fictional psychotherapy clients, who are composites of people Hallowell has treated over his long career. They include Les, a research analyst in an investment firm, who's enslaved to his computer and phone screens; Jean, the archetypical multitasking working mom; and Ashley, who has a steady flow of brilliant business ideas but can't make any of them happen.

The clients come to Hallowell with their problems, describing in detail how they're affecting their performance at work or their relationships. The author looks into the clients' pasts, exploring their childhood, their relationships with their parents, and the behavioral patterns they developed to cope with life.

Hallowell then helps his clients change by explaining how the problem behavior disrupts five key areas that are vital for a happy, productive life – energy, emotion, engagement, structure, and control – and by offering an action plan so they can perform at their best.

We read how clients learn new behaviors and challenge old ways of thinking and acting. And we see them change, performing better at work and having healthier relationships at home.

We like the way the author explains the six ways we lose attention at work through the lives of these characters. Most readers won't fully identify with his fictional clients, not least because some of their case histories involve highly neglectful or harmful parenting, but they may see themselves reflected in some of their traits and will benefit from the author's tips for addressing problem behaviors.

In Part Two, Hallowell explores the science behind how our brains and bodies work and looks at all the ways we can train our attention, become more focused, and achieve more in our personal and professional lives. He shows readers how to harness the power of their body, mind and emotions, and explains how human connection and structure help us break through our energy-draining mental chatter, feel more balanced, improve our performance, and reach our potential.

Let's now take a closer look at some of the author's suggestions for becoming more focused, starting with the problem of screen sucking.

Spending too much time on the Internet, compulsively checking email, or trawling social media can drain our mental energy. It can numb our emotions, stop us from engaging with people in the real world, and distract us from the task at hand. Yes, our mobile devices can save us time but they steal many hours from us, too.

So how can we cut back on screen time and improve our focus? Hallowell suggests we first take stock of how much time we spend on our electronic devices every day. We can do this by jotting down when we log on and off, or keeping a voice memo. Once we have a reasonable estimate, we can see where we can cut back.

Another tip is to reserve set times during the day for screen time – for instance, an hour in the morning and one in the afternoon – and let colleagues or clients know we'll only be available during those periods.

Of course, this won't be practical for everyone. Some people need to be online throughout the working day and sometimes beyond. If this is you, maybe there's still a way you can cut down on distractions – you could exit from your email program or put your phone on airplane mode for the time you're focusing on a project. As Hallowell says in the chapter on multitasking, it takes a lot of mental energy to switch between tasks.

Also, try to catch yourself when you're turning to your mobile to relieve boredom and do something else instead – take a walk to the coffee machine or find that article you've been meaning to read, on paper, if possible, rather than on your laptop or phone.

Some of Hallowell's suggestions aren't original, but we particularly like his idea to get colleagues or team members to agree on an email policy. You can come together and decide to send emails between set hours and to keep other times free to concentrate on tasks, except for emergencies. You can also agree on an expected response time for emails and how long they should be.

As an individual in a big corporation, it's hard to tell colleagues you're not available at certain times, but getting everyone talking openly about how distracting emails can be and agreeing a protocol around sending and receiving them gives everyone permission to switch off for a while, and it could have a big impact on focus and productivity.

Let's now look at the author's tips on getting our bodies and minds into their optimal state for concentration, so we can do our best work.

Hallowell says we should aim to attain what he calls "flexible focus." You may have heard of flow, which refers to a heightened state of awareness, when we're so engaged with a task we lose all sense of time, hunger, or tiredness. Then there's focus, which is a concentrated, clear state of mind when we're focusing on one thing but open to new information at the same time.

"Flexible focus" lies between the two. It balances right-brain creativity with left-brain logic, organization and analysis. To achieve this, we need to reduce distractions and give our minds and bodies what they need.

Cutting down on screen time is one way to limit distractions, as you heard earlier, but how do we take care of our minds and bodies so they support us in our work? We do this by paying attention to what Hallowell calls the "sensational six": sleep, nutrition, exercise, meditation, stimulation, and connection, or positive human contact.

Again, there's nothing very new here. Most of us are aware we need a good night's sleep, a healthy diet, and regular exercise to be at our best. And mindfulness meditation has now become mainstream, with some of our top corporations recognizing its benefits.

Still, we also know we struggle to do what's right for us, so it's good to be reminded. And Hallowell backs up his suggestions with studies and science and includes some fascinating facts.

Out of his sensational six, the author's thoughts on stimulation and connection are the most interesting. He suggests we keep stretching our brains by taking on new tasks, learning something new, or doing puzzles that train our attention and make us think. And he advises we take time to make connections with other human beings, or with nature or poetry, every day. "Vitamin Connect" is the other Vitamin C, he says, citing studies that link connection with health, well-being and increased productivity.

We also like the chapter on harnessing the power of emotion. Fear, anxiety and other negative feelings can have a huge impact on our performance at work. Hallowell suggests getting a handle on our own personal psychology – what pushes our buttons and why, and what makes us tick. Are we risk takers and team players, or risk averse and more comfortable working alone?

One way to produce a positive emotional state is to work within our sweet spot. This is the intersection between what we love to do, what we're good at doing, and what someone will pay us to do. Working in our sweet spot is the antidote to apathy, low morale, and low productivity.

Les, the author's fictional client, was unhappy and unfulfilled at work, which is one of the reasons he got sucked into surfing the web. Once Les got a handle on his Internet addiction, he was able to tell his supervisor his true talents weren't being used. He moved into a marketing role in the same company, where he could put his creative skills to good use. Someone else was hired to take his old job whose talents were more suited to the role.

We like the way Hallowell reintroduces Les to drive his message home and link back to the earlier part of the book. We also think he makes a good point: having the right people in the right roles makes great business sense. So if you're a manager, it's worth taking a look around to see if your employees are happy and if you're making the most of their talents.

Like many of the author's tips, this isn't hugely original, but we think Hallowell does a good job of packaging his suggestions so they're credible, backed up by research or science, and easy to take on board. He writes with authority and passion, and his expertise and his desire to make a difference to people's lives shine through.

On the negative side, some of his ideas around limiting the use of technology won't be practical for all readers and some of his tips are quite basic, like eating healthy snacks to keep our blood sugar stable. We also think he takes the case histories of some of his psychotherapy clients to an extreme, so it's not that easy to relate to their lives.

Otherwise, though, we really like this book. It's timely and relevant, addressing big problems in corporate life around work and technology overload. And it's an engaging read that won't take too much time out of your busy day.

"Driven to Distraction at Work" by Dr Edward Hallowell is published by Harvard Business Review Press.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.