More Focus. More Flow. Less Distraction.

5 min readFeb 7, 2021

Introduction

In this article I want to talk about how I handle digital distractions working remotely. My goal is to get into the flow more often and stay in it for a longer time.

Working from home for a couple of weeks I soon found myself being distracted more often. I was always switching between reading chats, answering emails, participating in meetings, helping out my colleagues and my actual tasks. Every day I got more and more unproductive and stressed out. I could not concentrate on anything I was doing. Being digitally available all the time killed my productivity. So I needed to set up some rules for me.

Note: These rules may appear ridiculous or to strict at first, but try it for at least one week and you will see that not only you are more productive, but also your colleagues communicate more efficient with you.

Text based communication

Chat Clients: Don’t be available all the time.

Most employees belief that it is crucial to be available in MS Teams, Slack or whatever chat system your company is using, but it is not. When there is something important your colleagues can still call you on the phone or other voice communication tools. When you set your status to red/busy more often there is a higher resistance for your colleagues to reach you, so they will think twice if their concern is really that urgent.

Chat Clients: Describe what you want in a single message.

Do not expect your colleagues to instantly respond to your messages and therefore put more information in your first messages. Don’t start a chat like this:

A: Hey
A: Are you there?
B: Hey, yes I am here
A: good, how are you doing?
B: fine …
A: I have a question that you could maybe help me with.
B: okay, what’s your question?

Instead describe your colleagues what you want in a single message:

A: Hey, how are you doing? I hope as good as me. I have a question that I hoped you can help me with. Do you know where I can find the documentation for …?

This will help both of you to waste less time and when you keep messaging your colleagues this way, they will soon adopt the same technic.

E-Mails: Only read and answer emails twice a day.

With e-mails it is similar to chat client. Just because you can be available all the time and reply immediately, it does not mean that you have to. If there is anything really important going on, you will be called anyway. To save yourself time and trouble with always reading e-mails as soon as they come in, distracting you from your work, just turn of your e-mail notifications or close your e-mail program. Reading and answering e-mails twice a day for 15 minutes each time is enough. Also you should avoid reading e-mails as the first thing in the morning.

I myself read my e-mails before or after the first team meeting we have, which is about one hour after I started my day. The second time I read my e-mails is at the afternoon about 3pm.

E-Mails: Write if-this-then-that messages.

To avoid sending messages back and forth, start using if-this-then-that conditions. For example:

Hey Johnny,
Do you have access to the document filesystem? If so could you please send me the document xy or if the document is not in the filesystem yet could you please give me the contact address of the author?

It is a very simple trick, that will save you a lot of time.

Meetings

Avoid unnecessary meetings

Just because you were invited to a meeting this doesn’t mean that you need to accept and be there. When you already know that a meeting will not help to solve a Problem, then say it to the inviter and decline the invitation. This is not ignorant or disrespectful instead it shows that you really care to solve a problem here.

When you are already in a meeting, but you feel like you can’t contribute anything to the meeting, you can always still leave it. There is no need to just be present and wait til the meeting is over. Just excuse yourself and say that you need to do something else.

Also before setting up a meeting yourself, ask yourself if it is really necessary or if the problem could be handled with a email to everyone, a short 1on1 call, a chat message or if you can just solve it yourself.

Preparation is key

The worst and most unproductive meetings are the ones where no one is prepared. So you spend the first 15–30 minutes explaining to everyone what the meeting is about.

When you are invited to a meeting make sure you read the relevant notes and documents before the meeting. Be prepared for questions that might come up and make sure you know all the business terms from the documents.

When you are the one giving the meeting, tell the participants to prepare themselves, because you want the meeting to be as productive and efficient as possible. They will be more likely to do so when you point out the benefits for them and not just your own benefits. Also I always prepare a document with all the information needed for the meeting to make it easier to prepare.

Stick to the fixed meeting time

Every meeting should have a fixed time box that you should stick. When the time is almost over it’s better to find a conclusion fast. If your discussion really doesn’t fit in the time of the meeting it’s better to make a cut, summarize the meeting and make a follow-up meeting the next day, because when the meeting is taking to long everybody gets unfocused and this is the time when bad decision are made.