Hello everyone. Thank you for your interest in this session and for taking the time to join in tonight or later on demand. Thank you also to the webinar vet for inviting me to be part of this 2023 management series.
There are many great quotes out there on how being distracted and interrupted can affect our thinking, our focus and our performance. I like the big plunge and the simplicity of this one. In this webinar, I'd like to discuss how our being interrupted and distracted at work can affect not only our focus on performance, but also our sense of fulfilment in the job we do and our level of happiness at work.
Then move to consider the reasons why we may allow ourselves to be distracted, and finally, to look at ways that we can minimise or remove some of those distractors to encourage us to have a happier, more fulfilled and productive working. It's all too easy to feel overwhelmed at times by our world, isn't it? We all have our own personal needs, responsibilities, and stressors.
Those things that flip our personal switch. And on top of those, we have external concerns, those things that affect us all. Our economy, climate change, human rights, the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing recovery from that, and perhaps now a growing awareness of future pandemic preparation.
We have concern over our healthcare system, mental health, and for future generations. In fact, not a day goes by that it doesn't seem we're being bombarded with heavy topics and doom and gloom from media outlets, and really, there's only so much of that that people can take and still be able to stay upbeat, happy and healthy in our lives. Wouldn't it make sense, therefore, that if to help manage some of these challenges and concerns, we were to look at turning the dial down, if you like, in terms of the degree of annoyance or anxiety that we encounter, not just at work, but in other areas of our lives.
Most of us would agree that veterinary practise can be a challenging place to navigate. It's common to experience an often chaotic environment, lots of demands, time pressures, increased expectations of clients, colleagues, employers, and increasingly dealing with a workforce shortage, which can often result in a reduced number of vetting professionals and support staff taking on a greater workload. All things considered, it can be difficult to stay with ourselves, to centre, to focus, and to concentrate on our own objectives and wished for outcomes that day.
For example, getting a good lateral chest view, calculating monthly figures, checking medications are ready for the patient discharge appointment. That we've received that needed clinical history or that we've simply made up a kennel for that RTA that's on its way. Whatever our role is in practise or task that we individually need to get done, it's important to have an awareness of the whole practise working.
If we can manage interruptions and distractions successfully, the flow of our work improves, and that's got to be a benefit for everyone. So our ability to shut out the noise around us. Allows us to better focus, and having a better focus directly impacts our working lives, that of those around us, the clinical outcomes for patients, and often too, whether our working culture is a healthy one and our ability to focus does affect the overall performance of the business.
Let's look at some simple definitions here. Interruption, something that temporarily stops an activity or a situation, a time when an activity is stopped, and for distraction. There's a few there.
The process of interrupting attention. A stimulus or task that draws attention away from the task of primary interest, and 3, to take someone's attention away from that person, from what that person is doing or should be doing. Near Isle, the author of the book Indistractible, which I started to read, but then got distracted, so predictable, wasn't it?
Well, he describes distractions as being of two types. Internal and internal distractions that come from our minds. So fatigue, illness, personal problems and worries, and daydreaming about what we might rather be doing.
And internal distractions can also be emotions that we have about the work that we do, or the people that we're working with. For example, if we were working closely with a colleague that we don't naturally click with, then that can affect our ability to be objective or to feel enthusiastic. And then are there are those external distractions, the ones that come from outside of our minds.
So chatty colleagues, background noise, mobile phones, social media notifications, meetings, multitasking, some types of music, phone calls, emails, text messages, visual distractions. That's a lot there. An example of an external distraction for me would be when I'm working on a piece of written work and a friend sends me a breaking news message in WhatsApp, perhaps that a baby giraffe has been born in Tennessee with no spots.
Now, that's an external distraction, and it's one I find difficult not to immediately jump from what I'm doing onto a new site. Research would confirm that the mobile phone is the biggest workplace distraction. And it's thought that 55% of people believe their biggest distractor is their mobile phone.
In fact, Larry Rosen, who's a psychology professor, and he's co-author of the book, The Distracted Mind, tells us that the average person checks their phone every 15 minutes. Other common reported distractions at work, the internet. So when people use their mobile phone to browse the web, research shows that the time online is spent to chat and message, send emails, listen to music, search searching music, watching videos, searching for products, reading news, playing video games, job searches, gossip, social media.
It's a lot, isn't it? Colleagues stopping to chat, coffee, lunch breaks. And meetings.
So it's interesting when you read through that, that so many of the top workplace distractions involve the internet or phone apps. Although I suppose it's not really surprising, is it? The data report on January 23 shows that in 2022, social media accounted for 38% of global daily online time.
That people spend 2.5 hours each day on social media. And according to a study published in SN Business and Economics journal, 45 minutes of that time is while they're at work.
So for interest, I thought I'd note the numbers from this study. That 15% of people spend 15 minutes on social media at work, 24% spend 30 minutes. 13% spend 45 minutes, 11% spend an hour.
16% spend more than 2 hours and 18% denied using social media at work. The same study showed that 42% of people use social media work for entertainment. That 36% of participants believed that social media leads them to deviate from the work that they're doing.
And 57% of the people who responded believe that social media negatively affects their productivity and their happiness whilst they're at work. According to the Association of Psychological Science survey, even the slightest distraction can cause us to take longer to complete a task. Not only does it affect the length of time to complete the task, but it can decrease the quality of the task and the decisions that we make.
I like this quote, and this one moment, this point of interruption, we lose our focus and our progress stops. Our attention is ripped away, our brain abruptly shifts, our momentum is gone, and with it any feeling of satisfaction. As leaders and managers in practise, wouldn't it be beneficial for us to appreciate how distractions impact the focus, the performance and the happiness of our teams.
When something distracts us at work and our attention goes elsewhere, at some point we need to shift our attention back to what we had been originally doing, and often when we go back we feel deflated that we haven't finished it when we'd wanted to, and that can make us feel discouraged, which then affects our ongoing work for that day. The knock-on effect of that happening is it can then impact on the team working around us by causing a bottleneck, or stop others from getting on with their task. I can personally vividly remember waiting to take an X-ray, and because the team working on another case got interrupted, we couldn't then move forward with our patient.
And depending on the reason for their delay, And how I was feeling that that day, did I sleep? Did I have breakfast? Did I get some time outside?
It caused Mild to intense annoyance, and it did create a time pressure anxiety. If the practise team, and I say practise team because it could be any role in any part of the practise that experiences distractions, and no matter our role, it's equally problematic. If we leave important issues unresolved, It can cause a buildup of tension and resentment that goes throughout the practise.
The individual's sense of job satisfaction can plummet. Relationships with co-workers can be impacted and so the overall practise culture can be affected. I'll just go back to that for a second actually.
To say that distractions may not affect all generations in the same way. For example, there's a proven difference between generations and the level of noise that they can put up with when they're trying to focus on work. So there are 52% of Gen Z are the most productive in a noisy environment, while 60% of baby boomers need complete silence to focus on work.
Also, Gen Z are more capable of dealing with distractions when their attention is diverted than baby boomers. A few more interesting figures come over. According to research, social media is mostly used by the 16 to 34 age group, and specifically, females spend 41.9%, and males spend 38.8% of their time on social media.
The 35 to 54 age group, it's 37.2 for women and 34.7 for men.
So it's perhaps a thought for those in elite position. To look at how we can accommodate or should we accommodate the different generations. A study from the University of California found that it takes us on average.
23 minutes to regain our focus after an interruption. That's no trivial finding. Recent studies suggest people can be interrupted at work every 3 to 11 minutes, and when we're interrupted, and we have to put aside the work that we're work that we're doing, so we have to put aside unfinished work.
Our brain is going to fight with us. It really doesn't like it. It causes the performance of our brain and the quality of our decisions to reduce.
So I guess our brains could be likened to a computer. That has too many programmes running. It begins to slow and slow and slow, and one day it might just stop.
With so many stimulants in practise today, it's understandable that we get distracted. And one reason a distraction is successful, if we can call it that, can be that we lack the ability to pay attention. Now that can be particularly true if we're suffering from an internal distraction.
Sometimes it can be as simple as a lack of interest in the job that we're doing. Jobs that perhaps we consider menial or boring or repetitive can stop us from keeping focused. And then there's those tasks that we're not interested in or naturally we're not inclined to do.
Annual stock audit just popped into my mouth there. Then we have those irresistible, but lovely distractions like cake in the staff room. And lastly, it can be that we simply have a lack of motivation or boredom.
And preparing for this talk, I read some interesting quotes, and so I've noted a couple here. Simple but true, people can easily get distracted at work because of boredom with their job duties or just a lack of motivation related to their current role. Some people may find themselves feeling overwhelmed by too much information coming in all at once, which makes it difficult for them to stay attentive and productive throughout their shift hours.
And today, the convenience and compulsiveness of using smartphones have rewired the brain's neural net in ways that impact the ways humans think and operate. It's like people have become so distracted by shiny objects that catch their immediate attention and move their focus from the task at hand. So in summary, we're distracted when our work is not engaging enough or we don't feel motivated.
Reflecting on those, it got me to thinking about. Recruitment and retention in our profession. And that if people working in our businesses are bored, not utilised fully, so bored and switched off, it's not going to help our situation.
Perhaps we could look closer at the people in our teams, their skills, behaviours, personality. What are they doing now? What could they be doing now?
How can I inspire them to invest and engage with this practise? Interesting. Since there are so many distractions out there, and they're an integral part of our lives, it's perhaps an idea to put effort into managing them well.
To do that though, we can't just rely on our own self-discipline when it comes to being interrupted, and we really don't need something else that will give us any in our struggle. It just depletes our energy. But if we can Work to understand our working environment, our colleagues, and our own personal weak spots, we could instead start to build a tool kit, so techniques, systems and prompts that will work for us as individuals and increase our energy.
There are effective things that we can do to help minimise and prevent interruptions as employers, managers and team leaders that would encourage uninterrupted working and so promote the health of our teams. Firstly, though, It's a very real positive if we can start by creating a work environment that encourages focused working whilst maintaining team wellbeing. We can have a look at some of those tools, so other things that we could implement to help.
Schedule breaks during the day and set a definite ending time. Shadow focused people, productivity can be contagious, can't it? So if we put new staff to work alongside or new staff or students.
To work alongside and shadow those who are more focused and productive, it can help them get off to a stronger start. It can inspire others. We could think to introduce that staff can post rules on the practise internet or media.
If some people would find that useful, for some people, it helps to push them to get their work. Complete One that I use often, that is when we have a block or some of the team do, then going outside for a quick 10 minute wander can be a great pick me up. Movement can really help our brain settle to focus, can't it?
When we better understand the potential consequences of our teams becoming distracted, it helps us to implement policies to help reduce the problem. We can block certain websites, we can ban the use of personal mobile phones whilst at work unless it's for urgent use. By setting lunch and break times.
Monitoring email and internet usage. By limiting the number of meetings that we have at any one day, week, month. And allowing administrative staff to work from home on certain days.
Now, some of these might not be popular, be controversial even, and you might not personally feel comfortable with some or all of them. But if there are those that you think just might make a difference, . Just have courage.
Aside from the top distractors that I mentioned earlier, there are those everyday circumstances and internal distractions that can throw us off and ruin our good intentions for that day. When we're hungry, it is virtually impossible to focus. If you're anything like me, when I'm hungry, I feel like I could literally die if I don't have food or even a cheesy Whatsa.
And as we don't want our teams falling like flies in the prep room due to hunger, it's essential that everyone gets the time to eat and drink through the day. We are probably much better now as a profession and looking after those basic needs, but it is still common to hear that I didn't get a lunch break, or it just seemed better to keep going to get through the work, but that just isn't acceptable. And if it is genuinely the case, then the physical working, the workflow, needs to perhaps be looked at further.
In any respect, when we ignore our needs, then we're much less likely to be able to focus or make good and consistent decisions. Just like we can't focus when we're hungry, we don't focus properly when we're tired or not feeling well. The more we work to catch up with things, the more tired we are, the more likely we are to be distracted.
In fact, the National Safety Council NSC reports that fatigue lowers an employee's productivity rate by 66%. And a recent study by NSC reported. Sorry, report also showed that the workplace can contribute to fatigue, as 97% of employees have at least one fatigue risk factor at their place of work, and they give fatigue risk factors, examples as long hours, monotonous work, intense working, badly designed shift patterns.
It's common sense, really, isn't it, to think that being at work when we're unwell will affect the work that we do and our colleagues. So it is never a good idea to push through illness. Personal worries.
Most of us will have these at some point in our lives. And whatever those issues may be, it makes it harder to focus, concentrate, and easier, it is easier for our minds to, to wander. Hm.
If there was to be such a practise, one with clutter, then it would greatly affect our ability to work well. A messy work environment can impact the team's focus. It limits our ability to take in and process information, and for some, it can lead to stress and anxiety.
It doesn't encourage focus, organisation, or a good outcome. The umbrella term of mental health is a topic becoming increasingly talked about, perhaps more so since the recent pandemic. Still a way to go though, more people are struggling with mental health, and it presents a potentially dangerous distraction.
In fact, mind reported that 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem in England each year. And sadly, according to new research, Gen Zs feel anxious or stressed most of the time. And 38% of millennials feel stress and anxiety most of the time.
Things that we can do to help with internal distractions. Now I'm not suggesting Marie Kondo here, but to get rid of unnecessary items in that area, the doorstop that the dog chewed and half still lying on your desk. You know it's there.
Organise papers and folders, files or better still use electronic storage and save space. Taking breaks for relaxation and fun can recharge our batteries. And when our batteries are charged, we're less tired and so we're less prone to distraction.
It's easy to pop a 10 minute break in your day's calendar, especially on those high energy output days. If we're sick, we really won't be doing anyone a favour by coming to work. Take a couple of days off, get better.
And I think that applies to time off in general. If we plan breaks and holidays, then it stands to reason that we'll be better rested when we get back, and our enthusiasm will probably have gone up a notch or two. Time off as well as to have fun and relax, can also help us to tackle any personal problems or worries that we might have, and with an added clarity and balance perhaps.
Sometimes we're just not able to resolve health issues by ourselves, and that's probably the time to seek professional help. Whether we're dealing with a physical health problem or a mental health one, consulting with medical professions really is essential for a good long term recovery. As I mentioned earlier, building a personal tool kit is valuable.
And helping us to reduce interruptions at work that are perhaps stopping our flow. So I put together a few suggestions of general but workable examples. That might fit with your own toolkit for you to consider.
Wake up 2 hours earlier and do the most important task of the day immediately. This is, this is not one that I'd have in my own personal toolkit, but yes, cup of tea made tick. When you're in a workflow and you're really focused, try a simple please do not disturb sign on the door, it can be effective.
To think about are there places away from my desk or my office where I could work in peace, so a meeting room within the building. A home office, a local cosy coffee shop that I could concentrate. Let the practise team know clearly what times of the day you're not available.
I know you're doubting this, but it might just make a difference. For example, if you have, if you have something sitting on your desk that indicates you shouldn't be disturbed, it could be a red flag, it could be a Paddington Bear, whatever works. Then they'll know when they see that sitting on your desk.
Please don't disturb. Assigning email time per day is simple, again, but effective, and you can decide what that might be. For example, one hour and answer all emails quickly in a sprint.
Although perhaps that would be best in the afternoon. I personally find it helpful if I'm going to be involved in particularly productive work, not to have email open. Have that pinch.
Short, 10 minute short morning sync meeting with your team, so that the most necessary information for that particular day is exchanged, and that does reduce the possibilities of further interruptions. I'm not sure if you would feel this one to be doable, but if it is, Boy, does that make a difference to take one day in the working week to work the whole day without any interruptions. To pre-schedule no interruptions times and communicate again clearly to the whole practise team, it is proven to be one of the best ways to handle inter interruptions, but also to improve your own effectiveness if you can pre-schedule time.
Make your diary public. If your role is one whose schedule involves tasks that need focus and or have a time limit, we can get into the habit of noting our schedule somewhere visible, so that the practise is aware of what we have going on and when and where perhaps with who. So to put it on the.
Business management system, the daily diary, the Google calendar, or even stick it on the front door of your, of your office. It then allows people to judge when you might be available for a quick and needed input. Planning work ahead.
If we can identify our priorities for each day, we can start on them as soon as we come into work. The positive payoff from that is that we can then more easily organise and schedule tasks so that we finish the priority ones before leaving to enjoy activities that are unrelated to work and without any guilt. The previously mentioned study from SN Business and Economics shows that nearly 80% of people believe there should be an organisational policy regulating the use of social media in the workplace, but it's so very often not the case.
So if your practise doesn't have one, there are still things that you can do. Manage app notifications, so turn off notifications from social media platforms and other apps, and this is time that you want to concentrate and be focused. This isn't everyday all day, you understand.
Schedule phone use or put it away. If you really want to avoid your phone, put it in a drawer, put it in a lockable drawer. If it's not realistic to put it in a drawer or to mute it for the entire work day, then we can actually set a fixed schedule for checking it and obviously you would decide what that may be.
And just like Putting phones away and setting a schedule, we can do the same for social media accounts. And lastly, Website blockers. They do allow us to create a blacklist of those time consuming websites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
Or any other website that you visit too often. No judgement here. Yes, maintaining good relationships with our team is important.
So too though is setting boundaries to ensure that our day is an enjoyable and a productive one. If we don't feel we've worked well on any given day, it does impact how happy or satisfied we feel travelling home, doesn't it? Most colleagues are polite when interrupting us at work, aren't they?
Phrases such as I don't mean to interrupt you, but, or can I just quickly say? But it seldom is, is it? So I thought I'd put together some of those common polite interrupting requests with potential responses to them that just might be in our thinking bubbles.
Depending on how our day is going. I don't mean to interrupt you, but you absolutely do mean to interrupt me now go away. May I interrupt briefly?
No, you can't interrupt. You have too much of an ego for it to be brief. Can I just say, can I just quickly say it usually is, no, you can't, you will drone on and on in that whiny voice for ages.
And finally, can I just quickly share an idea that has just popped into my head. You will have been plotting this for at least 6 weeks, and I could watch all 4 seasons of Morgan in the time it will take for you to quickly share this idea. OK, so those are unspoken in thinking bubbles responses and perhaps not very mature.
Joking aside, some interruptions are genuine, and they do need our attention. When that's the case, how can we deal with those in a more encouraging, patient and constructive way than the examples that I've just given. Well, firstly, we can help our brain transition from task through the interruption and back again to the task by having a plan.
Someone suggested to me many years ago, a simple but effective action to take. And there are, there's various names for this, I think, but it's basically a ready to resume plan. So when someone needs our help with something unexpected, we can ask that they give us a few seconds to write some things down, and then we'll be absolutely focused and be able to give them our full attention.
Now it doesn't have to be long or complicated, just a few notes where we're leaving off. Of what we still have to do. It enables our brain to be able to let go of the current task.
And move successfully onto the new unexpected one. You know, by doing that small, simple thing, our brain doesn't have to worry that it must remember X Y Z. And so with a calmer brain, our attention is going to be able to switch much more effectively to the task or the person that was interrupting us.
Does it make a difference would be the question well. Recently, the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Business conducted a series of lab studies. Where volunteers were given a task with a deadline for completion, and then they were interrupted and asked to do something else.
Those who made a ready to resume list before making the switch to something else, were found to be less likely to have attention residue. The study concluded that they were able to forget about, or at least put aside the initial task and focus better on the new task and with a higher performance in that new task. Just a thought.
Lastly, to remember, we can also learn to politely refuse to chat with people when we're focused on a task. It's legitimate. It might look like this, a straightforward but polite refusal to engage, a brief explanation of why we're not able to chat at that moment, and a suggestion of an alternative time when a discussion could take place.
So along the lines of, I'm sorry, I'm right in the middle of something and I need to focus, I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow morning. A small word of advice here, and that is to perhaps not end that sentence with, is that OK? They might say no.
Then you're struggling and you'd probably prefer that it didn't end in fisticuffs. Actually, another thought to that, that we only have so much brain capacity, and if it's crammed with information, how long can it perform well? I'd like to leave you with another thought for consideration, and that is the ramifications and potential consequences of constant interruptions on the performance of the clinical team in our practises.
In terms of clinical outcomes. Their personal health, client confidence in the practise and animal welfare, so the foundation of our profession. Most of the team would probably agree that frequent interruptions are an inevitable occurrence in a veterinary practise and that these interruptions do negatively impact both the clinical decision making and also the well-being of the vet that's making those decisions.
Vets and medics alike are often juggling several ongoing tasks and deal with multiple simultaneous interruptions and with an ever changing. Priority of task. Recently, the Journal of General Internal Medicine published an article or study.
Identifying effective interventions to help clinicians better manage interruptions has the potential to minimise diagnostic errors and improve patient outcomes. The study gave the example that ER doctors are interrupted as often as 7 times per hour, and that interruptions have been associated with a significant increase in medication errors. Research found that individuals failed to return to the original task 13 to 18% of the time after being interrupted.
One study found that interrupted radiology residents were 12% more likely to have made diagnostic errors in their final reports compared to when they were not being interrupted. Others have found that interrupted ER doctors take longer to report final diagnosis, and that's even if the accuracy of that report is, is not affected. Examples of the interruptions given, and I think we in our work could identify with them.
Phone alerts diverting a doctor's attention in the middle of a procedure, member of the support team asking questions, being asked to sign paperwork, or being asked to check a critical patient in wards that requires them to stop everything immediately. Now, not all of these can be taken away, but could we put systems in place that could help reduce them? It's certainly worth asking the question, isn't it, to our clinical teams?
What are their biggest daily interruptions and then to look for us to look at strategies that could help prevent or minimise those, for instance. In high risk environments. Anaesthetic or medication administration, we might think it's safest to implement those strategies aim to prevent interruptions at all costs.
Wouldn't it be a positive if we as practise or team leaders could create ways of working to help manage the negative impacts of interruptions. I've noted a couple of interesting strategies that have been used by human medics. One popular, but it is controversial intervention to reduce errors caused by interruptions is the use of do not disturb vests.
Now these vests Have been found to significantly reduce the number of interruptions by up to 75%, actually by 75%, and the number of medication administration errors by 66%. Suggesting that this intervention has the potential to effectively promote patient safety. There is a flip side to this though, and that is that several studies then went on to suggest abandoning these interventions, fearing that they do not disturb pests sent the wrong message that doctors should not be bothered.
And also found that These interventions may work in the short term, or I think they did work in the short term, but may be unsustainable as people often resort back to their old habits. A related concept to the do not disturb vests is the no interruption zones, and which may be also referred to as medication safety zones. This concept was adopted in 1981 after multiple aviation errors were caused by.
Distractions The Federal Aviation Administration implemented the sterile cockpit rule to remove all interruptions during critical moments of a flight, such as takeoff and landing. Because of the success of this, it was adopted by several sectors, one of which was in the field of healthcare. One studies tested and 11 study tested the impact of a.
No interruption zone during medication administration in an ICU and found a 40.9% decrease in interruptions. Quite impressive.
Interruptions and distractions kill our momentum. They disrupt our sense of contentment in what we're doing, and they can lead us to feeling frustrated, anxious and unfulfilled. And it's not an easy fix, as distractions are everywhere.
External concerns, mobile phones, social media, noise around us, colleagues, changing priorities, visual stimulus, or an, or an internal personal issue that makes us lose focus. But regardless of the type of distraction, it's essential that where we can, we work to bring that dial down, to bring a calm to what we can affect, so our own spaces in living and working, and by doing so, hopefully encouraging those around us to do the same. And in terms of work.
To employ strategies that will help the whole practise team reduce or remove those common vet workplace distractions. If we can achieve that, we might just also bring about the desirable outcome of people in vetting practise being more engaged, more productive, and more satisfied with the job that they do, and a sense of fulfilment. And in turn, perhaps more likely to stay in those jobs.
Now there's a thought and one not to be distracted from. Thank you.