This is an All Ears English podcast episode 1727.
Are you addicted to distraction?
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In this episode, we review an article about mindless habits that will undermine our performance at work.
Listen in today to get tips on what to do and what to avoid at work when it comes to your habits.
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Hey, Michelle, what's shaking?
Hey, Lindsay, not too much.
How are you?
Awesome.
Awesome.
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Michelle, are we talking about mindlessness today and a lack of productivity?
We are.
We are.
Oh, my gosh.
This is going to be a good one.
We're going to really talk about this article that I read, get some information from that, and then we're going to go into how it impacts our listeners.
So we'll very briefly go through this article.
But this is from HuffPostcom, and it's seven mindless habits that are making you unproductive at work.
These are the most common ways people sabotage themselves in getting work done.
This is by Monica Torres from October 26th, 2021 and the 27th actually.
Uh-huh.
Oh, I'm excited for this.
So we're talking about self-sabotage today.
It's always an interesting topic, self-sabotage.
You know I like digging into the psychological side of things.
Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
So we're gonna so some of these come from or all of them.
But there was they talked to a time management coach.
So guys, we can leave you the article.
You can see who spoke about which individual tip and everything.
But somebody that they did speak to was a time management coach named Anna Dearman Cornick.
OK, so we're going to talk about just a few of them and then we'll go into really how it applies to you, how it applies to us, things like this
Yeah, we'll probably add on a few others if we, if we think of them.
To write Michelle a few of our own here.
Yes.
OK.
All right.
So what did what did Anna Dierman Cornig say is the first one?
Right.
So the phone.
Of course.
I could have guessed that.
The phone is just, you know, if you have a second, you start looking at your phone.
Do you ever feel like – I mean, sometimes it's amazing to me.
I will – maybe I spoke about this recently.
I remember –
I was we took a one day trip.
Those are our trips now, unfortunately, to Hudson, New York.
Yeah, Hudson is really pretty.
Yeah.
And we and we went and Dan, we were eating outside.
But they actually they he had to go into the restaurant to order blah, blah, blah.
Okay so, and he had to, my son was watching a video to keep him calm, um on on Dan's phone and uh oh no, no on my phone.
And Dan had to use his phone to go into the restaurant and he like, because he had done the order on the phone, everything.
So I didn't have my phone and I it was crazy to me, I mean literally every minute I went to reach for my phone to look at it And it wasn't available.
And I was like this is really.
I mean, because it's almost like my muscle memory, my body just wants to go for it.
And it kind of... I still remember... I mean, that was months ago now.
And it still kind of made me think about how addicted I am.
And so it is when you have any kind of break, even if I'm like watching a show with Dan and he gets up to go to the bathroom and says I'll be right back.
I automatically, instinctually just go for it.
Right.
So you're like miserably addicted, like physically addicted, not just mentally.
It's a physical thing, I think, also.
Interesting.
But I think the good news is here is that physical addictions, I think, can...
I think physical is just like a manifestation of the mental habit.
So it's probably the mental habit, because if you stop the mental habit, you're no longer making the physical movements towards the phone.
But yeah, I totally empathize with this, Michelle.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And when you go on your phone, where do you go?
Do you go to Facebook?
Like, what do you scroll?
Yeah, I do think it's like the social media, but a lot of times, sometimes it can be the news.
Yeah.
You know.
Things like that.
Sometimes I don't know if you do this, like with text messages.
Sometimes I'm too busy during the day to really answer things in real time.
And then I'll kind of catch up on my text messages.
And then I always have to be like, sorry, it took me so long.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I'm big on the New York Times.
I read the New York Times.
I do the same thing.
Usually where I go is the New York Times.
It's bad.
It's bad.
Then you become like a news junkie.
Yeah.
Oh, I know that.
But so basically, you know, she talks about, you know, if you have this – any kind of break –
Then you're on the phone or you know, even like I should give the example of just like when a website is coming up.
You know like you're waiting for the website, or you're waiting just for something and you look at it.
I mean, even something as little as that.
So she mentions that a good thing is to just like.
Make specific time to check your phone.
Like maybe not just any old moment, but you know, maybe as a little bit of a reward if you've done something well, like she mentions having it as a reward, things like that.
So what do you think of that, Lindsay?
Yeah, I think that's a good idea, but it's so much easier just to say that this is what we should do versus do it.
I'm surprised actually email addiction isn't on here, but I guess it kind of is.
I suppose you could be checking your email on your smartphone.
But I'm imagining being in front of your laptop and always coming back to your email.
I check my email a bajillion times a day.
But I know that in business, high performers only check a few times a day.
But I just can't quite seem to do that because I use my email as like a task list, which is so bad.
What do you mean?
What do you mean as a task list?
A to-do list.
You know, I get emails from people from our team or from whatever anyone in our orbit here at All Ears English.
And these are things I need to do, right?
And so those become... I do prioritize them in my head as soon as they come in.
And I have another task list.
But...
If I finish the day and I haven't answered these things, I feel bad.
Like if I haven't taken care of things.
It's like wiping off, like crossing off a task is checking an email and doing whatever is needed.
Yeah.
So Lindsay, when you check your phone and you get into the New York Times, I mean so that's like, do you only do it when you have a significant break?
Or do you like how this person mentions you know, even when something's loading, will you check it to see, like the headlines?
Maybe if something's loading more than like three seconds, but I understand.
I definitely totally feel the annoyance when things take longer than a second to load.
So something, yeah, I might check another browser.
So I might go to the New York Times or an email in another browser quickly while I'm waiting for something else to load.
So yeah, whether it's on the phone or the laptop, it's all the same.
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So, OK, let's move on to the next thing.
So she talks about having and Lindsay, I think that both of us are guilty of this.
Yeah.
If you guys could see my screen right now, all the browsers that are open.
How many browsers do you have open right now?
I'm going to count mine.
OK.
I think I have 10.
I don't, okay, I'm not answering the question because mine is way more embarrassing than Tan.
But okay, like, I mean, to be honest, I have our social media stuff.
It's just like our scheduling things for social media.
I always just have them open because I always go to them.
So I, unless I like shut down my computer or something, it's just easier for me how to open.
But there are some things on here.
You know we're researching for episodes, things that could be closed.
But so, yeah, she mentions that that could be distracting.
And it could make you kind of get like you mentioned, like New York Times, you could get distracted by that open.
So that could be a problem as well.
Yeah.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
I think I think if anything, not just distracted, but overwhelmed.
I have to be really careful not to let myself get overwhelmed because I could.
It's tricky, though, right?
With the browser thing.
In reality, yes, all of this stuff makes sense.
It's totally clear.
I get it.
But in reality, what we do is we do multiple tasks at the same time.
So maybe I'm uploading an episode to our host and that's going to take 30 seconds.
So while I'm doing that, I'm going to go over and I'm going to write the title for the thing or I'm going to record an ad.
So these are things that all have to be done in a way at the same time.
Otherwise, I'm wasting time and I'm working a lot longer.
So that's really the problem is multitasking.
Right.
And I think that's for me with like our social media scheduling.
If I open it every time, you know it'll, it'll take another.
I mean not a long time, but it's just easier to have it.
Oh, there it is right there.
I can upload whatever.
Yeah.
So I think it's a time saver.
It doesn't some things.
And I think, yeah, sometimes like you said.
If I just had a whole bunch of garbage open up and like some of these things.
It's like oh, I've looked up the definition to a word or an expression I'm thinking of for an episode.
Those things I can close now.
Yeah.
Some of them like that's not distracting.
It's actually helpful.
So I'm going to like push back on that one just slightly because I think, but but still I do have more than 10 things open.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess maybe the key here, I'm just going to put out my philosophy here.
The key is figuring out what kind of task you're currently doing.
Are you doing multiple tasks at the same time, which don't necessarily require a lot of focus?
They're just simple things.
Uploading, downloading, writing titles.
Right.
But then at that time maybe it's OK to be multitasking, because there are gaps in time in which we're waiting for certain things.
But maybe at other times in the day.
It's a singular task and it has to be, because it requires full concentration.
Right.
Right.
Maybe it's strategizing or I don't know, writing an email.
Right.
That kind of thing.
That's what I think we have to do.
Absolutely.
Yeah, that's a good tip.
You know, so you have to think about when is it useful and when is it harmful?
So, and the third thing that I felt was important to bring up with and this is a quote this is what the tip is.
Well, not the tip, but this is a mistake or the habit.
You assume you are right.
Yeah, so that's interesting.
So it talks about you know, if you assume you're right, you won't make you know a change.
If something isn't right or you get to, i mean you you just get like too comfortable, you assume that you're right and this can actually make you unproductive.
What do you think about that?
Yeah, this is where I think a little bit of self-doubt could be good.
It could be healthy.
You know, I have a little self-doubt for sure when I make a decision.
I think, oh, but what about this?
What about that?
Not so much that it's paralyzing, right?
That's not good.
But being able to make a decision, take in information, make a decision and then always think okay, what am I missing?
I'm missing something, right?
There's gotta be something I'm missing.
There's gotta be a gotcha.
I was having a conversation with someone on the phone yesterday and I was saying there's always a gotcha right.
In every task, everything that we're taking on, we don't know a lot about it.
There's gonna be a gotcha.
Yeah.
And what's that going to be?
So I think we have to always be anticipating that if we don't, we're blind to our own.
We're like flying blind and it's foolish, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
I think that's a good point.
I mean, Lindsay, so there were more.
And guys, like we said, you can take a look.
But I mean, be honest, Lindsay, which one of these are you most guilty of?
The three we've talked about.
Well, I'm not convinced that number two is all that bad, as we said, if we're doing very low level tasks.
OK, so that's the first thing I think probably look going to my phone.
So as I said before, I go to The New York Times.
I also go to my Yahoo mail.
I don't put my work email on my phone anymore strategically.
So on the weekends I can't go, or in the evenings I can't really check my work email, unless I have my laptop and I have to like very consciously say I want to check my work email.
So I'm going to go in.
So that's good.
So all I can really check is my personal email, which there can't be that many interesting things in there, you know.
So you never, so you never have your work email on your phone.
I used to.
I've changed that now.
I just don't do it anymore because I don't think there's any reason, right?
Like on the weekends, I shouldn't be checking it.
In the evenings, I shouldn't be.
It was just a personal, protective thing to make that decision.
Yeah, that's pretty smart, i mean, for me sometimes it can be helpful, like to have it on my phone, because i'm not always sitting down, i'm often, often chasing a little person, and so like it can make my life easier.
But i do.
Yeah, that's something to consider.
Yeah, it depends on your work schedule, like how you know I mean I know for you Michelle, like you come back and forth from from Manhattan sometimes and make plans for work and that sort of thing.
So I could see the use for it.
But for me, when I'm working, I'm usually I usually have my laptop if I'm working or corresponding about work.
Right.
Interesting.
Yeah, okay.
And that's kind of an interesting tip, you know, I have to consider that.
Yeah.
So I mean just you know just talking a little bit about the our listeners here, and you know how this impacts them.
Number one, I think is the obvious way, but we're gonna, we're gonna get going soon.
But just quickly, I mean, I think one thing is that the apps can be distracting.
So, like If you're in a conversation, make sure you might look at your phone instead of joining in the conversation.
That's bad.
Yeah, don't be unproductive in that way, right?
This doesn't always have to just be about work here.
It can, you know, be about your language learning.
So make sure that you're engaged, right?
Yeah, exactly.
And you mean if you're in a physical conversation or like a Skype conversation, right?
Yeah, we never we don't want to be looking down for our phone.
That's when that's another level.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And then, you know, the other thing we've talked about consuming too much.
Right.
So this kind of it made me like the browsers made me think of this one.
But, you know, we've talked about this on the show before.
There's something else deeper here.
Right.
There's something going on.
And I think it's dopamine.
That's dopamine.
Right.
So we know.
So this is why this is pathological.
And I think humanity needs a better solution because, you know, for example, I will be in my email.
It's a Monday morning.
Right.
And I'm overwhelmed.
I open my email.
There's like, you know.
300 things I have to do, but what am I doing?
I'm seeing these and I'm checking for the next thing.
I'm almost waiting for the next thing to come in.
It's a weird dopamine addiction that we all have to some extent, right?
Unless we live in a cave somewhere.
And so I think that that's important to acknowledge.
This is not just about the browsers and the technology.
It's about our brains and how they're reacting to the overwhelm of information.
That's the interesting part.
Yeah, definitely.
And I also think that with technology, we are no longer comfortable with silence or just nothingness for a moment.
And, you know, so, I mean, I think that we are always looking for more, more to learn, more to do.
And so yeah, I mean, and then the other thing is, I think sometimes something that could be unproductive is if you feel unwilling or you feel uncomfortable with feedback, right.
So guys, make sure that you're taking that feedback.
Like, so don't assume you're right, as the article says.
Oh, for sure.
Absolutely.
Always assume you in a way, always assume you're missing something, but not in a very bad way.
Right.
Not in a way that you feel bad about yourself.
Always assume, like I said before, there's a gotcha, that something is being slightly overlooked and needs to be taken care of.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So, Lindsay, I mean, I think we can find the balance between being flexible and being rigid.
But, you know, we you don't have to never look at your phone.
You don't have to never do, you know, fun things that might distract you a little bit.
You know, I think that's part of human life, right?
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, Lindsay, anything else you want to mention before we head off today?
Yeah, I think we know when we're hooked and when we're not.
And so I think it's a matter of being tuned in guys, to our own inner mind states and addiction cycles.
Yeah.
Right.
Like, you know, when you're hooked, you know, when you're keeping things in order and things are OK.
So I think tuning into that, just being a little more self-aware, that's what I'm working on.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So guys, this was a very interesting episode.
So thank you for listening.
Check out the article and let us know how you stay focused at work or in school, so that you can be productive as well.
Yeah, good stuff today, Michelle.
I'll talk to you soon.
All right.
Bye, Lindsay.
Bye.
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