Inside Scoop: Handling Distractions in a Hybrid World

Hello, welcome to Inside Scoop. I'm Paula Rizzo. Were you just in the middle of doing something else and then I distracted you? I'm sorry if that happened. I get it. That's what happens to us, right? It's like, I'm in the middle of something, I'm in the zone, I'm being really productive, and then off I go doing something else. And then I'm like, what was I in the middle of doing? You can raise your hand if that happens to you too. It happens to the best of us, I have to say. But don't worry, we have some ways to avoid this, to handle these distractions, especially in a hybrid world, right? We're now— some of us are working from home, some of us are working remote, some of us are working from a coffee shop, some of us are working from the top of a mountain, whatever it is. And the distractions are pretty, pretty big now. We just got used to working from home and now it's like, hey, do this all over again, but in the office because you're not used to being around people anymore. I have a great expert today who is a bestselling author and someone who I think you're going to really like and enjoy her tactics, her ideas for really cutting down on the distractions. And it's something that I personally have worked on a lot in my life. So I'm excited to talk to her to see what her ideas are there. And I have a resource for you before we bring her on in just a moment that will help you get organized and be less stressed. It's my list-making starter kit, and you can grab it at paularizzo.com/listmakingstarterkit. Lists. And also in this List Making Starter Kit, I will say, is a distraction placeholder, what I call distraction placeholder and how I use it on my to-do list. And we can talk about that a little bit later as well. But it is one of the things that I have to say, anytime I talk about lists and getting things done, when I mention this distraction placeholder, people are like, I wish I did that sooner. That's so amazing. So we'll talk and we'll, we'll, we'll dive in a little bit more on that, but I want you to grab that. So go ahead and do that. And I'm also a LinkedIn Learning instructor, and I have quite a few courses on LinkedIn. One of them is How to Set Boundaries and Protect Your Time, which is important. We're talking about distractions. Boundaries are going to be important for you here. So that's one you're going to want to check out. And I do have another one on hybrid work and how to be your most productive doing that. You can check out all of my LinkedIn courses, of course, on LinkedIn Learning, or if you go to paularizzo.com/linkedin, you can check those all out. There at any time. You can watch them day or night. And, uh, please share this video if you're watching this right now and you're like, you know what, I have a friend who gets very distracted and is always talking about how she doesn't, you know, she doesn't know where she was or what was I in the middle of. Share this right now. Hit that share button or tag someone below, a friend of yours who you think might benefit from this. We would love to hear your questions as well throughout our chat, so please leave questions We're going to answer those towards the end. So if you're watching the replay or if you're here with us live, leave those questions below. We're not ignoring you. We will get to those as soon as we can. And that's it. I want to bring on my guest. I think it's time, right? So without further ado, joining me today is focusologist and bestselling author and speaker, Penny Zeniker. I think— Zeniker, sorry. Zeniker. I totally screwed it up, Penny. I'm so sorry. Penny Zeniker. Sorry. I was distracted. I was, I was flipping between two things. This is what happens to us. Well, thank you for being here. We need help. We've always needed this help, but now I think more than ever. Could you tell me, I know you have a very specific, you know, three, three things that we should be looking at when it comes to distractions. It feels like a thousand, but you have pared it down to just three.

Well, it could be a thousand, right? But the thing is, is that we just tend to stay in that loop of just saying, oh, I feel so distracted. But if we don't break it down into something more specific, then we don't own it. And so I just made it simple. 3 things. So, for instance, right now, emotional distractions. The biggest thing that people don't even think about is that you've got so much going on. Maybe you're taking care of your parents who are older or your kids are sick or you're— you got passed over for the you know, job, the job that you wanted or whatever, right? There's different things that are happening emotionally for us that are distracting us from, from doing that thing that we need to do right now. And, and the other two are physical distractions, right? Is being cold or something in, in our physical being and then looking at our environment and how our environment distracts us. Okay.

So that's A lot. Exactly right. It's a lot. I mean, those are a lot of things. Your mind could be somewhere else, or literally your attention could be pulled away because, you know, the lawn people are here making noise outside or whatever it is. So when we're talking about a hybrid environment, right, so people have been working from home for a very, very long time, and which I love, and I love working from home, but now people are going to be going back into the office. What considerations or what kinds of things should we think about when we are splitting our time, you know, and wanting to be focused wherever we are?

Well, you know, there's, there's things that we can do for ourselves. But there's also things I think that the organization needs to take a look at and do. And one of those things is just to constantly step back and see what's working and what's not working. Because we kind of get caught up in this learned helplessness of just doing things a certain way. Like, even at home in the beginning, I allowed myself to just let the distractions happen and not really do anything to stop them, you know, like to stop my kids from coming in or have a discussion as to how we can work this better. We just kind of get frustrated with it. Sure. And then, and then, and then it gets worse and worse. Right. So I think we need to create some awareness as to what and be proactive, what kind of distractions might be there for us in the office that we're not used to now, because it's also a matter of getting used to. You know, what about those got-a-minute meetings where somebody comes and stops by your desk? What can you be proactive about with your team to say, "Hey, here's how we're going to offset this so we don't create a new set of distractions"?

Yeah. And you know, it is those boundaries, right? Being able to set the boundaries and being able to say, "Hey, these are my office hours." I mean, I have also been very good about that at home as well. And, you know, I, I often tell people, that they should treat their environment like a TV set. I can't help it, I'm a TV producer. But when you're working from home, I always found it, I wasn't as forgiving of people when they had their kids running in the background or the cat was jumping on the computer or whatever, because in my world in television production, that's a no-no, right? It's not charming or cute to see your cat waving in the mirror, in the camera. Uh, but I, you know, to your point, like, our mindset needs to switch now. That was acceptable and okay before. It's not okay and acceptable now, right? So now you're all like thinking like a TV producer. Uh, so you do need to, to, to think about that also when you go back into the office, because like you said, people are going to pop in and be like, hey, I just wanted to see you real quick, and let's talk about this, let's talk about that. It's really hard to say no to people. What do you suggest that people, you know, is there a script that they use? Is there something you suggest that people say?

Well, definitely it's, it's not a bad idea to have a couple of predefined things that you can say to people or have up on your desk that says, you know, to show that you've got those office hours like, yep, you know, hey, come back at this time. I do think that you could say, hey, look, I really— sometimes people will call me and I'll say, listen, I only have 5 minutes. Is it something we can handle real quick?

Right.

I pre-frame it ahead of time to let people know this is the window that I have. If it needs more time, let's schedule something later.

Sure. Right. Exactly. Like to define that right away. I mean, I never answer my phone. I never even answered my phone when people used to call you. Now they don't call anymore. But, you know, you have to train them. I don't either.

But there's a lot of people who feel like they have to answer the phone, right? That's, that's part of, part of the challenge is these We're kind of in this urgency epidemic, which isn't just because of the pandemic. Right. This has been going on. And so we have to be able to handle, handle that and say, I'm not going to answer my phone because it doesn't require me to do that. And so, again, those are sort of the boundaries, or I call them rules.

Right.

They're part of my gatekeeper system of defining rules ahead of time that make it easier to say no or make it easier to hold the line and stay focused or keep your attention here now. And then later come back to something. Like you said, with like a, a parking lot or a place where you put those items that are a distraction for where you are right now, that's, it's being proactive, right? And having these things in place so that you can, you can use them.

Sure, for sure. And that's what, you know, I want to talk about that next, my distraction placeholder, which I've been using for a very long time. And I want to get some of your ideas too on things that do work to help us focus our attention and not distracted. But what I found, and I did this, you know, for years, is that, you know, I have my to-do list, of course, that I keep next to me at all times. And then on the lower left-hand side, at the very bottom, I leave that area open for my distraction placeholders. So if something happens, I'm in the middle of writing an email to you, let's say, Penny, and then I get distracted. Somebody calls, rings the doorbell or something like that. I write down, literally I pause, I stop myself and I write down what I'm in the middle of doing. So this takes some training because we're ingrained to just jump up. You hear something, something ring, whatever, you want to go deal with it. It's a little bit like mindful meditation. You do have to stop yourself, notice that the door is ringing, write down what you're in the middle of doing, and then you can get up and go answer the door. And when I come back, I'm like, what was I in the middle of doing? 24 new emails just came through. Something else is happening on Slack. There's a thousand other things I could be doing. But no, I'm going to go to my distraction placeholder and I'm going to see what I was in the middle of doing because that was important in that moment. And if you go to paularizzo.com/list, you can see how I do it and you can download that for free. But I'm interested to hear your, your thoughts on that. And then, you know, if there are any other little tips and tricks we can give people to be less distracted and more focused. Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's a great idea, right? Because It happens. We get distracted. That phone call does come in that we need to pick up. And so I'm all for just quickly jotting down where you were. Right. So I just kind of call it the what am I going to do next?

Yes.

And it's supported for me because every time I sit down to do something, I write down what am I going to accomplish in this period? So if I'm sitting down for a 40-minute block, then I'm saying, what am I going to accomplish? I'm also taking a look at how I can proactively remove any distractions, put my phone in the drawer, uh, get what I need around me. And then when that phone call does come in and I decide that I need to pick that up, then, uh, A, I know what I was going to accomplish for that period. And then, uh, like you said, then I would write down, okay, you know, where am I? What's the next thing? I kind of go with what's next, what's the next thing that I was going to do, right?

Right.

It triggers for me, okay, got it.

Yeah, because it does take— I think, I think the number's 26 minutes, I can't remember, or is it 22 or 26? I think it's 22, uh, for you to get re- started once you've been distracted. So it does take a little bit of time to do that. Let's talk a little bit more about, you know, what employers can do, because the truth of the matter is, I don't think— I mean, I haven't heard yet. Prove me wrong in the comments below if you're— if your company is doing something really great to help you with distractions. But as I've heard so far, you know, companies are not doing a great job helping their employees to do this. So what are some ways that you think that they could help? And before I let you answer, if you're watching and you have any questions for us, just stick those in the chat box below and we'll get to you. But so, Penny, let me know, what do you think about companies and how they can help?

Well, I want to start out with a stat that I saw. This was actually before the pandemic, that 80% of companies said that they were aware of the fact that employees were feeling overwhelmed and overloaded. And the interesting thing is, is only 8% of companies have anything in place to support their people. Wow. Right. So, so I think there is a mismatch of them being aware of some of the challenges, but, but not either not knowing what to do or not taking action for whatever reason. So I do believe that employers have a bigger responsibility than they're taking right now as it comes to— and we're seeing more as it comes to like mental, you know, mental days or emotional health days. Mental health days. But I think, you know, we've heard it. A couple of years ago, but we're not hearing it now, like emails being held and not being sent out after hours. Yes, I get externally that, that, you know, they may have to go out if you're working with people overseas and things like that. But why can't you hold some of those internal emails or teach people, give them a course and tell them that if this isn't urgent and have to be done overnight, then please put it in a draft and send it in the morning when you come in, right? Train people as to how you want them to show up. Because my experience is, and I didn't know this when I was running my IT company, and, you know, tasks are like a hot potato. I just want to get it off my plate and put it on someone else's. And I wasn't thinking about that it's 11 o'clock at night and I worked all hours, which is bad. And I've learned a lot from that. Wasn't really sustainable. I didn't realize that it was stressing other people out.

Yes, they thought they had to get back to you at the same amount of time that you were getting back to them. And if it was at midnight, they had to reply back to you. And it creates this culture of we're always working. And that's true. I mean, I've had to stop myself as well from doing things, you know, late night, even though I see it and I'm like, oh, I just wanted you to look at this in the morning. You know, I do a lot of scheduling of my emails so that they will, you know, email in the morning, even though I am dealing with it at night. But I just, I don't want people to feel like they need to respond in that moment. And it's interesting because it's that culture, right? It's, that is what companies can do. They can help you to not feed into that. I remember I had a friend who worked for this company years ago. I guess they were very proactive with this even then. And I thought it was nuts. But now I'm like, that's actually a good idea. They used to do what they called no email Friday, NEF, No Email Friday. And the idea was that you were supposed to get up and you were supposed to go talk to whoever it was that you wanted to talk to instead of emailing them, or you were supposed to call the client instead of emailing them and all of this. And I was like, what is this crazy hippie-dippy thing you guys are doing? Just email, you know. But it actually really helped when everybody was on board, and it did help them to kind of, you know, get rid of all of the email clutter that does exist.

Well, one of the other things I wanted to share that came up for me is when I was working in Zurich, Switzerland. So I lived there for 16 years and they have a completely different culture, like you said. And interesting, their productivity culture, right, is different. So there were less got-a-minute meetings, like people stopping by your desk and interrupting you because they had 2 times a day was where everybody kind of went to the cafeteria to have their snack and coffee. Right? So it was like built in that it was at, you know, 9:30 in the morning would be that one frame and then 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And that would be the time. And they would then casually meet people. They'd talk about their weekend or whatever. So it would be social time, but it would also be a time to ask that quick question about Client X who needs, you know, this. And so they would hold their questions, right? We've got a weird perpetuating this culture of urgency. And so those little things that companies can do to train people to define urgencies together as to this is what's urgent, these things are not urgent, and this is how we're going to handle them to kind of proactively train people how they want to handle that and how they're going to create that culture of urgency in the organization.

And do it together. I mean, the point is, is that so that everybody can make sure that we're working the exact best way that we can. You know, I interviewed Dorie Clark a while back, and she has a book called The Long Game. And part of what we talked about was just that, that idea that you're addicted to being busy and feeling like, oh, I'm so busy. Oh, I have to say I'm busy. Oh, I have to be doing something at all times. And like, that is not true. But that's also, that's cultural. You know, that's, that's your, your, your company has ingrained that in you too, you know. And we've gotten some questions here. So I want to, I want to just pause here for a second and grab one of them because this one here, is from Ismail on LinkedIn. And he is asking, is our role to eliminate distraction? Is it our role to eliminate distractions or the company? I think it's a little bit of both. What do you think, Penny?

Absolutely, it's both. Like anything, right? It's the part that we have to own is the part that's within our control. And we also have to own the part where we engage the organization and take our team. We're all having the same issues. Why not sit down together for a quick brainstorming session as to how we can help each other. And then, and then ask, you know, hey, these are the things we suggest the company could do. And the company could also come with, with their suggestions. So it's got to be both sides looking at the issue and coming up with solutions.

Yeah. And Mara from LinkedIn O'Neill is saying, I feel that the onus is primarily on the employee first, since distractions can happen in other areas of our lives too. True. That is a good point. But with strong support from companies. So it is obviously just what you said. I mean, it's all of these pieces. You don't come to work and you're just like, hey, I'm just a worker now. I'm not going to— I'm going to forget about my whole life that's part of me.

So I have something I wanted to add, though, that came up for me is that, you know, a good example is so managers also feel, you know, leaders in the organization, they're also somewhat overwhelmed, overloaded. The pandemic comes in. They've got these new challenges. How are they going to deal with them? And we're just not taking enough time to step back and to look at things. So what happened in the pandemic around communication, for instance, is more systems were added. So what I found is people are even more distracted, especially now that it's hybrid. This is going to also be a huge issue, is that they're a part of so many different chat platforms, right? They're not like making a clear designation of we're going to communicate Project Matters on this platform in this way. We're going to communicate, you know, on— with our Teams platform in this way. And then there's so many more platforms that have been added. Some people are in the office, some people aren't in the office. And so the company, in my opinion, that's a great area for them to take responsibility and to say, hey, look, we're going to eliminate anything that's not necessary. Let's look at the redundancies that we've accidentally created by trying to come up with solutions because it happens. And let's reduce those and say, you know what, we really don't need to use WhatsApp, Skype, and Slack, for instance. We could really do everything that we need to do on this one platform. Hey, and here's how you guys can help to manage yourself is that you don't need to be online and be responsive for everything. You know, use the do not disturb and so on and so forth. Right. Some training and some guidance that it's OK Give them permission not to always be available.

Yeah. And I do want to talk about apps in a minute because we do have a question about it. But, you know, it's a great point. I mean, I'm doing this with my, with my own team right now. There's like too many places for us to talk to each other. And then we're like, wait, where is that thing? And it's falling through the cracks. Was that on an email? No, it was in Asana. Oh wait, didn't you Slack that to me? So we're trying to streamline too, because you're right. Like there's too many points of entry now where you can really, but just overload yourself, and you're distracted by these, by these things that are popping up in your inbox. But really being able to focus and be laser-focused and say, OK, this tool is for this purpose; this tool is for that purpose. You know, bringing up and voicing your opinion to your managers and to your bosses is important too, you know, to be able to say, hey, this isn't working. Or maybe this worked when we were all in the office. But now that we're— some of us are not, it doesn't work anymore, you know, and that's OK. So I just want to bring up this question from someone from LinkedIn who is asking, are there useful apps, extensions to help you promote your focus? What do you think?

Promote your focus. I'm not sure I understand the question 100%, but there's, you know, apps can be a great productivity gift and curse, right? So it really depends on how you're using them. So there are some great tools out there. I'm a fan of less tools than more tools. OK, so, you know, but depending on what works for someone like Priority Matrix gives you a lot of different options to use matrices to, to set them up to, you know, to work in that way if you'd like to create structures in that way.

So I've never heard of this. What is it?

Priority Matrix?

Yeah, I've never heard of it.

It gives you a place to do like quick SWOT analysis or at which you then determine which are your top priorities out of that, right? Or something like the urgency versus important type of matrix, right? You can create your own matrices as to what's on one side and another. So it's, it can be pretty powerful if you are looking to work with a group or work with yourself to create some of those support structures. I like that.

That's helpful. I, you know, I'm a fan of the Pomodoro technique. I don't know how you feel about it, but I like it. So, you know, For those of you who don't know, Pomodoro is 25 minutes of focused time on one task, and then you take a break and then you start up again. And what I like about it, and you can do this, they have an app, or you could do this just with setting a timer on your phone. It doesn't have to be 25 minutes. It could be 20 minutes, it could be 15 minutes. I started doing it with 10 minutes because I was just like, my, my mind is too fast for 25 minutes. Now I've worked my way up. But the good thing is, is that it does train you. To focus for that amount of time, to say, hey, I'm going to just— I'm going to make sure that anything that pops up, I'm going to ignore so I can do this, because you're supposed to stop the clock when you get distracted. So it does help. So I do like that, the Pomodoro technique. And there's, of course, like, I think mindfulness apps do help in this way. I'm a fan of meditation. I use the Calm app, although now that I say that, I've been pretty bad for the past month and a half. I have not used it. So I do need to get back on board with that. But it does help you. Meditation does really help for you to just pause before you jump into doing. And I think that's a really important lesson that's been for me, just to see what's in front of you instead of just jumping to attention right away.

Yeah, I call that the action bias where we don't stop to take a look and are we doing the most important and effective thing or are we running in a direction that's taking us away from what is actually more, more important. So I agree with that. And I think the apps where the benefit is, is if it's an app that helps you get into a routine, like you said, it's those routines.

Yes.

That help you to be more effective because you're being purposeful with it. So if it's listening to the Calm app and being on there every morning or every day at lunch or whatever you're doing to clear and transition and, and provide clarity. Adding that routine is really powerful.

It's true. The routine, creating the habit, like those are, those are things that, you know, even beyond, you know, there's an app that Nicole's talking about now in the chat there on LinkedIn called Forest, which I've never heard of. The longer you're off your phone, the larger the tree grows, which helps with phone distractions. That's cool. Because now I really, I mean, I know it's good, but I hate that it tells you like how many hours you've been on the phone for the day. And I'm like, what was I doing? I don't understand 5 hours yesterday. Like, But that's what happened. So I'm going to check that one out. That's actually pretty, pretty cool. You know, if anybody else has any other questions or if you're watching the replay, put those questions below. We'll make sure to get to those even if it's after the fact. But Penny, I want to get to the freebie that you have for everybody because I know there's a quiz that we can take to really help us with this. So can you, can you just walk me through that? What, what people will find if they go to your site, which is— there it is.

Absolutely. So what they'll find is they see that there's a little question there. Are you a time zombie? So we're going to take a look at what's your distraction profile or your focus profile, whatever you want to call it. And, and it's going to ask questions around those three different areas that we started out talking about, the distractions that we have that are physical, emotional and environmental and getting us really clear on what those things are. Some things that you might not have thought about that are truly distracting you. And then you're going to find out whether you are a wizard, which is awesome, or maybe you're a hamster on that wheel and you can't get off, or a squirrel, or even a deer in the headlights, right? So it's a fun way to just create some real heightened awareness as to, you know, where you are and give you a place from there to, you know, own your distractions. Because, you know, we tend to only own our actions, right? But we need to own our distractions as well.

It's important to know yourself for sure. And this has been so helpful. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope everybody goes and gets your quiz, checks out all of your offerings at your website. Thank you again for being here. If you have questions, please leave them below. We'll continue to answer those even if you're watching the replay. And I'd also love for you to check out the free gift that I have for you, which is my list-making starter kit at paularizzo.com/list. I have my distraction placeholder on there so you can sort of check out how I deal with distractions as well. And, uh, you know, thanks for watching. I'm hoping that this helps you, and we'll see you next time.