Journal of Financial Planning: May 2015
Catherine M. Seeber, CFP®, is a principal and senior financial adviser at Wescott Financial Advisory Group with offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Boca Raton and Miami, Florida, and San Francisco, California. She serves on the Board of Directors for FPA.
With my numerous life roles, I am accustomed to keeping as many of the so-called “balls in the air” that I can. I revel in multiple people needing my attention at the same time. Family, colleagues, friends, associations, clients, the list goes on. It’s sort of a “noisy head” syndrome where I’m in a constant state of prioritization and triage. I feel I’ve mastered keeping many trains moving forward at once. However, in this interconnected, constantly working, 24/7 frame of mind, I am starting to wonder if this is a good thing.
If you are of a certain age, you might remember when email aggressively shouldered its way in to our workplaces. Email was heralded as the second coming of communication and it haughtily sniffed at snail mail, conference calls, and those raggedy goldenrod interoffice envelopes with a slew of pitiful graffiti underneath the scratched-off “To” and “From” columns. What I wouldn’t give for the ability to send a printed memo to a colleague, and then have a day or two before I receive a reply.
Every email is a distraction. You are working on a financial plan and glance at your Outlook to see a provocative email subject line. A minute or two goes by as you start perusing the lines of the email. Another one pops up that you can quickly answer and voilà, you are completely off track.
Our home lives are busy and our work lives can be even busier. Tools introduced to streamline communication have caused us to be more fragmented. In our advisory roles, we have a responsibility to provide superior service to our clients. This is easy to do when you are sitting across a table from clients, fully engaged. It’s in the off hours of the engagement where we must be our own boss by prioritizing the checklist for the day.
I recently saw a reference to a study that caught my eye, and yes, probably distracted me from a greater task. The article “Momentary Interruptions Can Derail the Train of Thought,” published in the February 2014 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology reported that even the briefest of interruptions could have exponential effects on productivity. The article goes on to say that a 4.4-second long interruption tripled the “rate of sequence errors on post-interruption trials relative to baseline trials.” For study participants who were interrupted for a mere 2.8 seconds on average, the rate of sequence errors still doubled.
My interpretation is that one “ding” notification on my phone causes me to leave my “work freeway” via a last-minute exit, then re-enter the road again at a place two or three exits before I left, causing me to cover the same ground to catch up. Compound that statistic with multiple distractions in a given day and we have ourselves a productivity problem.
Balance vs. Boundaries
“Achieving balance” has become a catchphrase, but let’s not confuse balance with boundaries. You can have a balance of business, family, friends, and “me” time, but still be unsuccessful at setting useful boundaries that allow you to truly embrace your goals and actions in these competing spaces.
Simply put, we need to focus. Not just for 30 minutes a day as we block out personal time on our calendar, or attempt a no-meetings Monday rule in the office, or when we think we are conquering the problem by turning off our phone or computer. Sure, those things help, but there is a bigger beast to tame: finding the discipline to singularly focus on what’s most important in a given moment for an extended time period. Oh, and most importantly, doing so without regret.
Many of us are too quick to entertain a colleague’s quick question or return a text. We do this even while we need to be head down, working undisturbed. You need to set expectations—especially if you are always known as the go-to person in the office—and be regimented enough to stick with them. Be ready to wipe any guilt away if you aren’t available at a moment’s notice. Eventually, your colleagues will get used to it.
Tips for Focusing
If you have a window into your office that a friendly co-worker can gesture through to see if that closed door really means that you are busy, cover it with some simple artwork or clouded transparency film that obscures just enough to deter. Face away from your door or hallway window so you can focus directly on your computer screen. If possible, wear headphones that are either noise cancelling or channeling mellow music, whatever makes concentration easier.
Most importantly, communicate. Post a sign on your door that says, “Need focus time from 2–4 p.m. today. Thank you for understanding.” That will convey your intentions, when you’ll be free again, and likely will resonate with those who face similar situations.
If a family member is a constant communicator throughout your day, work out a compromise. Promise a 10-minute call at a regular time to cover all of the issues and leave the messages outside of that window to emergency or time-sensitive questions only.
If checking social media is your way to stay engaged during long conference calls, try to go cold turkey. Or at the least, limit it to 15 minutes in the morning and at lunch. Pretend you’re in a foreign land with no easy access and just don’t check it for a week. Trust me, your Facebook friends will understand.
Feel free to break out of the four-wall office space. Some people find refuge in a library, which often has free study rooms, when they need a change of scenery. Others take a laptop to the park and breathe some air. Seeing green spaces has been shown to reduce stress and it can also give you a more peaceful place to work.
I am admittedly no expert, so I have also found inspiration from motivational speaker Brendon Burchard, author of the website The Charged Life (brendon
burchard.tumblr.com), who conveys wise words around how to stay focused:
Make fewer decisions. The more decisions we make, the more fatigued our brain becomes and the less effective we are over the long-term. Stop browsing. If you’re looking for something then search for that one thing, find it and you’re out. Stop clicking on all the blue links, stop swiping all the apps and all the pictures. Do the things that are going to move you forward.
Define your mission. Figure out the steps ahead, take focused action, and be ruthless in minimizing time spent on anything else.
Say no to everything immediately from now on, always. That goes against the grain of what a lot of people say, “No, life is about saying yes.” I want you to say no just at first, just so you can check it against your mission. I don’t want you to say yes or commit to any projects immediately anymore. That’s what people do. I do want you to commit, but just give yourself a couple hours’ break or an evening’s break. Make the decision the next day.
Like anything in life, Burchard’s advice may be easier read than done. Sure, some of you are visualizing telling that one person in the office, “No, not today,” and receiving the incredulous scowl in return. Perhaps identify the one or two things that are doable and experiment. During the course of proofing this article, I checked text messages, answered three phone calls, responded to an in-person request to review a presentation due tomorrow, and stood to investigate some mysterious thumping outside of my office (skyscraper window washer!).
So next time, yes, meet you on the quiet bench on that nearby greenbelt … without a phone.