How the internet kills your productivity

Internet is surely an integral part of your work. But research shows that it is usually because of him that you have much less time than you could have. With the connection to the Internet, we spend more time in vain, more often we distract ourselves and because of this we pay less attention and energy to work. It is necessary to allocate in your schedule the periods of time that you spend without connecting to the Internet - so you can dive deeper into the work. New article from Chris Bailey - author of the blog A Year of Productivity.

With you, it has happened more than once that you open your browser with the best intentions, but suddenly, without even realizing it, you fell under hypnosis of the Internet. And some time later, freed from this state, we realized that you were looking at the thirteenth picture of your friend’s Facebook profile, reading the comment section on some news website, or just on autopilot, go around from one application in the phone to another. How it turned out completely incomprehensible - the feeling at the same time is as if you entered the room and cannot remember why.
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Why is this happening?

This happens simply because the Internet captures your attention.

The Internet has this property for an interesting reason: our brain is incredibly difficult to resist the stupefying charm of the world wide web. As Nicholas Carr wrote in his book, Dummy:

“The network involves all of our senses,” and even worse, “and it does it at the same time.”

• Touch - in order to drive your fingers across the screen of a smartphone, move the mouse around the table and type text on the keyboard.
• Hearing - in order to perceive the sound produced by a computer or a small luminous piece in the hands.
• Vision - in order to absorb the eyes of an endlessly changing stream of text, video and photos of cats.

The response to our actions the Internet gives immediately and willingly - a deadly combination. The Internet captures our attention, overloading and overwhelming the brain.

As you probably already guessed, all this can have an incredibly detrimental effect on productivity. To become more productive is not to work quickly and feverishly, but quite the opposite - it means working purposefully and more thoughtfully, doing everything on time . And it is very difficult to work purposefully, especially - wandering around the Internet.

My favorite research on how we spend time on the Internet was conducted by Tim Peachille at Carleton University in Ottawa. He studied how students use time while connected to the network. And he discovered something really shocking: an average student 47% of the time on the Internet does nothing more than procrastination. And purposefully working and procrastinating at the same time is simply impossible.

Already in itself it harms our productivity. But the Internet often interrupts our work, distracting us from important tasks (about what the consequences of interruptions during work are here ).

According to research firm Basex:

“Interruptions due to the Internet and the subsequent attempts to return to work tasks take away 28 percent of the workday.”

Gloria Mark, a researcher at the University of California, who addressed the issue of attention, found that

“Each employee, starting work on a project, is distracted on the Internet after 11 minutes”

Moreover, the average worker then takes twenty-five minutes to return to his original task. How often the Internet distracts us from more important activities is crucial for our productivity.

In addition to this, what we do online is almost always less important than work. If we are connected to the Internet, we inevitably receive e-mails, messages, notifications of social networks, etc., but almost certainly this is not as important as work. Not everything in this world has the same value, and although the Internet is important, most likely we will achieve much more by doing something else, such as developing and creating a new version of our product, writing a report, talking with customers and controlling new employees.

The solution to this problem is simple: you just need to periodically disconnect from the Internet. Especially when you need to work on something very important. Do not be distracted easier if you get rid of temptation.

I am writing this text, and at this time my smartphone is in another room, and the Internet in my office is turned off. A timer is built into my router, by which it is turned off in my most productive working hours. And if I can not be distracted at another time - I just turn it off manually. I started writing an article 30 minutes ago, and during all this time I have never been swallowed by the black hole of the Internet. It’s impossible to conduct offline all the time, but such respite from the Internet, which I do at the most productive time for myself, helps to focus more on work and put more energy into it.

Here is your task for this week: do the same

Set yourself 30 minutes in a work day that you’ll spend completely without the Internet. In doing so, at first, your whole being will violently resist. This is normal, especially if your brain has long been accustomed to receiving constant stimulation from the Internet.

This is not just normal - it is very human. After all, the Internet for the brain is the same as fast food for the body.

The Internet is one of the greatest inventions of mankind, it would be really difficult to live without it. But, if you are not careful with him, he can not only benefit, but also greatly reduce your productivity.

PS We recommend another article on the topic - How to stick to balance in virtual life .

Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult