Image of a magnifying glass hovering over the word FocusA typical day in most workplaces is one unending series of large and small distractions that combine to keep most of us from making much forward progress on our one or two real priorities that matter. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people mutter around 5:15 p.m. that they are finally getting to the task they had started the day intending to complete.

Sadly, the workplace environment may be the single biggest inhibitor of effective workplace productivity.

5 Radical Ideas to Help You Find More Focus:

Health warning. Applying these ideas without a bit of common-sense and discretion may be harmful to your boss’s view of you. On the other hand, you might just make enough progress on your priorities to earn the boss’s undying gratitude.

1. Ignore Your Outlook Calendar. Yeah, I know…you would rather not wear underwear to work than go an hour without your precious calendar. This marvel of software engineering may be the greatest tool on the planet for organizing and systematizing distractions in the form of useless updates, never-ending status check-ins and meetings with no particular purpose that anyone can discern. Unless it involves a boss, the boss’s boss or a real boss in the form of a customer, try ignoring the rest of the filler in your schedule and use the time wisely on something that matters.

2. Say “No” to People Who Just Want to Talk. These human time-sinks (the analog equivalent of heat sinks in electronics that suck the heat out of the environment) amble into your assigned work space, plop their rear-ends down and regale you with tales of irrelevant crap. Before you know it, you’ve been lulled into a catatonic trance by the drone of their voice and you only snap out of it when mercifully, your Outlook meeting alarm goes off, offering you an excuse to trade this waste of time for another. Learn to politely shut these people down in the interest of getting your work done. Do this consistently and you’ll train them to stay away. Steel yourself for the sad puppy dog looks you get when you politely nudge them the hell out of your office.

3. Quit Deleting Things from Your E-Mail In-Box. Much like my Outlook comment above, I feel a ripple in the force for this one. Efficiency experts everywhere, you have permission to be outraged by this idea! In reality, there’s not a damned thing you’ll do better if your e-mail in-box is pristine. It might satisfy some goofy psychological need, but here’s a dirty little secret for most of us: the search function makes your in-box the greatest digital filing cabinet you’ll ever not own. The 1.2 million e-mails in my g-mail in-box (OK, it’s only 67,000 and I have to pay google $5 a year for storage space) are happily searchable at light speed and I know where everything is. And face it. At the end of your life, if you could have back the hours you invested over a career in cleaning up your in-box, I bet you would like that time back.

4. “Just Say No” to Powerpoint.  Seriously…one more flipping trip through a death-march of serial boredom perpetrated on me by individuals who missed the memo on bullets, font-size and pixels on screen, and I might lose it. What started out as a cool way to share ideas has turned into the single biggest inhibitor of effective dialog ever invented. Turn off the projector and the computer, stare at your colleagues and start talking. If you need a picture, go to a white-board. You’ll be amazed at the quality of the conversations when people are freed from the tyranny at staring at a screen until they start drooling.

5. Let the Little Things Age On Your To-Do List. This isn’t a game of volume, it’s a game of quality. If you’re a chronic “To-Do” list maker, make certain to focus on the one (or at most two) major issues on your list. While you might feel like you’re making progress by knocking out a bunch of the little items, it’s a never-ending trap that guarantees you’ll never make it to the big items. Somehow those pesky mosquito-like tasks multiply and just when you swat a bunch out of the way, the new ones return. Let the buzzing continue, because there are dragons that need slaying.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Time is our most precious asset. It’s irreplaceable, and the top performing professionals I know are remarkable at focusing on what matters and pushing the other items out of sight and out of mind. It’s easy for us to be lulled into the rhythm of the daily workplace and all its inherent distractions. It’s essential for us, for our teams and for our organizations to fight the distractions and find the time to focus on the issues that matter. If you cannot connect an activity to serving a customer, serving an employee or team member or helping the company beat a competitor or achieve key goals, it’s not an activity worth pursuing.

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