You might not be as productive as you would like for many reasons.
The phone that’s never too far away lets you escape reality for a few minutes. The problem is that those minutes frequently turn into a few hours every day.
Social media and your favorite games deliver feel-good doses of dopamine that are naturally addictive.
As if those activities weren’t enough to kill your productivity, you are subjected to many marketing messages while gaming and surfing the web.
In 2007, marketing research firm Yankelovich reported that the average person saw up to 5,000 daily advertisements and commercials.
Siteefy, a company that studies all things digital, reports that the number has doubled to 10,000 advertisements and other marketing messages daily in 2024.
If you develop the moral fortitude required to put down your phone and step away from the Internet, the world around you fills the void. Countless televisions, monitors, radios, and print media attack your senses.
It’s no wonder the human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in the mid-2010s to 8 seconds in 2024. Some sources estimate that number is as low as 4 or 5 seconds.
Those factors combine to form a perfect storm of inefficiency. Your modern world is adept at distracting you, leading to poor productivity. Use the following tips to become more productive and accomplish more.
Run a Screen Check
Arista Recovery reports that people between 16 and 24 often use six screens simultaneously. That’s a scary statistic. You may not fragment your focus much, but you can still benefit from fewer displays at home and work.
Count the number of screens that are begging for your attention right now. Remember displays on appliances, consumer electronics, smart devices, and wearable technology.
Reduce the number of screens and displays distracting your sensory network, and you can get more done.
What Do You Do for Entertainment?
Modern technology lets you play games and watch videos anytime, night or day. Endless entertainment options are nice but can wreck your productivity if you’re not careful.
Uninstall games and apps on your devices and cancel subscriptions to video streaming services. You’ll have more time and energy to tackle your daily to-do list and save a few dollars simultaneously.
One Thing at a Time
The many distractions of modern life might have you stretched in a dozen different directions at once.
That’s a problem because multitasking isn’t the efficiency-boosting practice it was promised to be when it became all the rage in the 1990s.
Multitasking kills productivity. Tackle one task or activity at a time. Work until finished, and then move on to your next responsibility.
Modern Life Promotes Procrastination
You have a lot to do. Where do you start? While you are deciding how to spend your time, the world is hammering your sensory network with the marketing messages and video and audio distractions previously mentioned.
Billions of people log on to social media sites every day. Do you? If so, you are engaging in an activity proven to heighten stress and anxiety.
You may get so stressed out from that experience and all the distractions we mentioned that you want to step away from your responsibilities and veg out.
That’s a modern-day recipe for procrastination. Begin every day with a game plan. Write out your responsibilities, prioritize them, and get to work.
Keep this list with you, and refer to it often for more productivity and less procrastination.
