Making you more effective at work to reach the next rung.
Attention and focus have become targeted by companies as if they carry intrinsic value. Focus does not have a value unto itself, but its value varies on its use. You only have so much attention/mental energy you can pay out over the course of the day. When we try to multitask we become less effective. This means you should avoid all the little distractions that clamor for your attention and try to suck you away from your current task.
Operational measurements fall into two categories: measures of performance and measure of effectiveness. The first is measuring the things you do. The second is measure the results you get. People often measure the former because measuring activity is easy. How many hours did you work this week? Measuring the latter is harder. Did you achieve what you set out to achieve? Results is what we, as professionals, are accountable for. It matters more how effective we are than how busy we are.
Few things are consistent from office to office as the complaining about email. “I get 200 emails a day; how do you expect me to get work done.” Some of you may be laughing at only 200, others are complaining about 40 emails. The problem here is rarely the volume of email. It instead is that post people don’t know what to do with their email.
There are sites out there that recommend only checking email three times a day (I agree). However, if you don’t know how to handle your email, it won’t matter how frequently or infrequently you check it. When you finish checking email and you still have two thousand or twenty emails in your inbox, you still haven’t handled your email.