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Seven takeaways:

• Focus is valuable, and difficult to regain. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine found that workers who are interrupted by phone calls and emails need an average of about 23 minutes to get back on task and end up feeling more stress and frustration than their peers.
• The article then lists seven common habits that push workers into distraction:
  1. Constantly checking your phone during lulls: Time management coach Anna Dearmon Kornick suggests scheduling specific “scroll time” in your day to indulge in social media without impeding your productivity. By allocating dedicated time for phone usage, you are less likely to impulsively reach for your phone and fall into the trap of mindlessly scrolling through apps.
  2. Doing unrelated tasks that will “only take a second”: Stepping away from the day’s most important tasks can disrupt your workflow and derail your focus. To combat this, create a “shiny thing list” of off-work tasks that might pop into your head and set aside specific intervals to address them. Career coach Anyelis Cordero recommends working in distraction-free intervals to enhance productivity. Focused work sprints of 90 minutes often yield better results than hours of scattered multitasking.
  3. You open too many tabs on your web browser: Hoarding browser tabs can cause stress and distraction, but using tab organizers or background managers can help declutter and focus your browsing experience. Research tools like OneTab which converts all your open tabs into a convenient list.
  4. You impulsively check Slack and other work chat platforms: Chat windows can interrupt focus and create more work for yourself, so setting boundaries with teammates and utilizing status updates and calendar blocking can help manage interruptions. Immediately responding to notifications can create an expectation that you will always be available, which further inhibits your ability to retain necessary focus.
  5. You start solving problems right away, before determining if they’re actually your problems to solve: It is natural, when you encounter a new problem at work, to want to jump directly into problem-solving mode. But it can be a safeguard of your time and attention to take a moment to assess the situation; be sure that the problem is your responsibility to fix and that it is fully understood by you and your team.
  6. You assume you are right: One of the most dangerously wasteful mindsets is to believe you have mastered your job. This mindset can lead you to resist change that may make your processes more efficient. Listen to others, research new technologies and techniques; embrace the need to adapt and change in the workplace– viewing it as an ever-shifting quest to find the most pragmatic, direct solutions available to you when presented with problems new or familiar.
  7. You schedule unnecessary meetings: Forty-seven percent of workers surveyed by Salary.com in 2012 said “too many meetings” was their top workplace distraction. Streamline meetings and eliminate them when you can. This will safeguard your own time and give others a chance to extend their periods of deep focus as well.

From Monica Torres for The Huffington Post
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Five takeaways:

1. The self-help space has become a multibillion dollar, hugely crowded industry. Naturally, one must be intentional in selecting their sources of self-help information- or risk getting stuck in the loop of getting bad advice and being forced to seek more.
2. To avoid bad self-help, make sure your self-help advice is consistent with these proven neurological principals:
   • Mental focus amplifies and magnifies: whatever you focus on becomes larger and more important to you than what you don’t.
   • Repetition creates default processing in the brain: it can make certain processes happen on “autopilot”
3. When the brain experiences something bad it sends a signal of negative emotion before giving way to more rational processes: interpretation and assessment of the bad thing. Good self-help advice encourages you to understand that this initial negative signal (say, anxiety or anger) is not reality, as much as it may seem like reality. The alarm is not the fire.
4. Bad self-help advice, however, focuses on validation of the negative mental processes holding an individual back. It wastes time validating an individual’s negative experience rather than giving advice for actually addressing it, causing them to get stuck in a feedback loop that sees them repeat their bad habits… and continue consuming bad self-help advice.
5. Good self-help advice actively seeks to be practical, helping individuals to define their goals/actions, and offering specific strategies to address their problems.

From Steven Stosny, Ph.D for Psychology Today
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Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.

Five takeaways:

1. Often, when faced with a difficult problem, we struggle. Not because we can’t find the answer, but because we aren’t asking ourselves the right questions. When we find ourselves lacking fulfillment, introspection can be daunting- but it is essential. According to legend, the dictum “Know Thyself” was carved into the stone of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, in ancient Greece. At around the same time, the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching, “Knowing the self is enlightenment.”
2. The key to finding a fulfilling career lies in first understanding ourselves and our needs, before determining what we are meant to do with our lives. What makes us truly happy, and how do we channel that happiness into our working lives?
3. Studies show that we often have an inaccurate perception of ourselves and our abilities. We tend to overestimate our own skills and overlook some of our own shortcomings. In other areas we underestimate ourselves. True self-knowledge requires diligent self-assessment.
4. Brooks evokes St. Thomas Aquinas and Buddhist teachings to show that self-knowledge leads to a reprioritization of love in one’s life. That excellence is “not separate from love.” So: when young people look to choose a career path, they should not stray from the things they truly love.
5. Love often takes the form of serving others, which underpins the deep fulfillment that work can bring. Who you may serve in your work will vary; it might be your customers, your colleagues, or the public. But dedicating one’s work to the good of others can make what might have been a previously unfulfilling work life into one full of motivation, energy, and happiness.

From Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic:
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Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.

Five takeaways:

• The author begins the piece by reflecting on the graduation speech by Harvard’s president at her graduation from the university in 1988, noting regrettable truths (and subsequent shifts) in Harvard’s admissions practices surrounding economic, racial, and cultural groups.
• She then jumps to her 30th reunion, noting that she was compelled by the way that life after graduation had become less about the prestigious school listed on her diploma, and more about getting in touch about the essential qualities of being human.
• The author then lists 30 “truths” she took away from her 30th reunion. The full list is worth reading, but five particularly resonant takeaways are below. Some of them are findings from the class survey each attendee took before the event.
  1. Nearly all the alumni said they were embarrassed by their younger selves, particularly by how judgmental they used to be.
  2. The group’s strongest desire, in the pre-reunion class survey—over more sex and more money—was to get more sleep.
  3. They became far more generous with their “I love you’s.” They flew freely at the reunion. They don’t ration them out to only their intimates now, it seems; they’ve expanded their understanding of what love is, making room for long-lost friends.
  4. No matter what the classmates became– a congressman, a Tony Award–winning director, an astronaut—at the end of the day, most of their conversations at the various parties and panel discussions throughout the weekend centered on a desire for love, comfort, intellectual stimulation, decent leaders, a sustainable environment, friendship, and stability.
  5. Attendees who’d experienced the trauma of near death—or who were still facing it—seemed the most elated to be at reunion. Some “were giggling, giddy as toddlers, practically bouncing on our toes, unable to stop hugging each other and smiling as we recounted the gruesome particulars of our near misses.”

From Deborah Copaken at The Atlantic:
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Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.