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PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

8 tips for fending off

digital distractions

If the steady ding of email and text message notifications

interrupts your concentration, use these tips to regain

your focus.

By Megan Hart

igital communication tools help accountants Block off time to focus on specific tasks
stay in contact with clients and co-workers, For complicated projects, it can help to set desig- About the
Dbut the proliferation of emails and messages nated “focus time” aside in your schedule. Jessica author
can be cause for distraction. E. McClain, CPA/CITP, the CFO at Girl Scouts
Megan Hart is a
In most jobs, digital communication tools have Nation’s Capital — and a graduate of the AICPA
freelance writer
changed the way we work. Americans spent an Leadership Academy — has found things go more
based in Florida.
average of 149 minutes daily checking work email, smoothly when she uses this technique. McClain
Adobe found in a 2021 survey, and reading emails said she’s still available to put out fires, but she
and answering messages often cuts into time spent added that “the fewer distractions I have, the more
on other job responsibilities. Also, it can be tough quickly I can get through projects without having
to give something your undivided attention when to go back and fix errors.”
you’re hearing the steady “ding” of notifications. In And she aims to leave Fridays as free as pos-
fact, it takes 15 to 25 minutes to refocus on a task sible so she can finish up ongoing projects and
after an interruption, said productivity specialist clean out her inbox for the next week.
Marcey Rader, a health and productivity expert That’s a strategy one of the nation’s largest
who spoke on this topic at the 2022 AICPA & accounting firms also embraced. Grant Thornton
CIMA CFO Conference in April. in the summer of 2020 rolled out quiet hours —
Feeling the need to always be available can a firmwide restriction on emails, meetings, and
make it difficult to relax on your own time, Rader conference calls on Friday afternoons.
said. “We all need to feel like we can shut off.” “Our Working Families Group was very
vocal about being overwhelmed heading into
HOW TO PREVENT DIGITAL DISTRACTIONS the weekends and needing time to get through
FROM TAKING OVER YOUR WORKDAY things,” said Michael Monahan, Grant Thorn-
“If you feel like you need to answer messages all ton’s national managing principal of people
the time when you’re at work, then you’re probably and community.
not getting your focus work done, and you may Some staff at Grant Thornton bought in im-
be taking it home with you,” said Elizabeth Grace mediately, while others needed to get acclimated,
Saunders, a time management coach and remote but the policy has become popular with employ-
work expert. ees, and some clients have even instituted the
Here are eight ways to prevent digital distrac- program at their own businesses, Monahan said.
tions from taking over your time and breaking He has since adopted the practice of setting aside
your focus: quiet time to reflect on firmwide issues, like

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