Does this sound familiar to you?

The alarm on your cellphone wakes you in the morning. You check your text messages, voice messages and e-mails on your cell, have breakfast, go to work. You switch on your PC while getting up to speed with your co-workers, check voice messages on your landline, open your e-mails (again), log in to Twitter to respond to messages and thank people for mentions, check in on Facebook (my job, like many these days, involves social media), and open your e-mail inbox (yes, again). You try to work on deliverables throughout the day, while dealing with issues with co-workers and regularly being distracted by reacting to e-mails arriving to your inbox.

Information Overload

Information Overload has arguably become the number one challenge for knowledge workers today, cutting productivity and reducing the quality of life of workers worldwide. In 2008, IBM, Microsoft, Intel and Xerox joined forces with the Information Overload Research Group (www.iorgforum.org) to combat this issue, which they say is one of the greatest productivity challenges of our time. In fact, October 20th, 2010 was declared Information Overload Awareness Day by IORG. A key company in the organization is Basex Inc., which is the research arm of the group.

Are knowledge workers in danger of developing a form of Attention Deficit Disorder due to being overloaded with information? Gloria Mark, Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California-Irvine has determined that the average knowledge worker switches tasks every 3 minutes! And according to Spira, "Each interruption comes with this penalty we call 'recovery time'- the time it takes to get back to the point where you were".

Interestingly, Joanne Cantor, Communications Professor at the University of Wisconsin has in her research found that multi-tasking does not work.

Here's how knowledge workers spend the working day according to Basex research:

According to Basex, workers lose as much as 28% of their time to Information Overload, costing over $900 billion a year in lower productivity and reduced innovation. Jonathan B.Spira has written a book entitled "Overload!:How Too Much Information is Hazardous to your Organization". The title has not yet been released, but can be pre-ordered from amazon.com.

So, what to do about all of this? How do we stay productive and get things done, amidst all of these distractions? Here's how:

1. Be organized: Have a To-Do List. Take some time at the start of each day to figure out what your goals are for the day ahead, and make a list. It will keep you calmer and more focused once the day gets going. Have a clear idea of what tasks you want to have accomplished by the end of the day. Prioritize the tasks, and get the top priority ones done before doing other things like checking your e-mail. I am going to quote an article that I referenced previously in another blog, it is  http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/do-not-check-email-in-the-morning, and also a previous blog article of mine http://www.rworks.com/index.php/blog/37-remote-working/79-how-to-maintain-productivity-despite-workplace-distractions
2. Minimize Distractions. If on average 25% of the day is productive, and 28% is full of distractions, you need to do something to tip the balance of your day back towards productivity. You need 'head-down, focused work time'. This can be difficult to achieve. Find someplace quiet to work- can you go somewhere else? Can you close the office door? Can you work from home sometimes? Can you just say 'no', (and not feel guilty?). I regularly work from home for a portion of the day, or the whole day. I find that for many aspects of my work, eg. writing a blog article, I need someplace quiet to think, research and put it all together. I find teleworking really enhances my creativity, and hence my productivity. No doubt about it, you have to actively work to create chunks of uninterrupted time.
3. Respect your Co-Workers Productivity Time. Bear in mind that your co-workers are facing the same challenges as you are. It's not OK to constantly think out loud or to distract those around you with your thoughts, questions and witty anecdotes! They are trying to 'get things done' too! If you have a specific query for a co-worker, walk over to their desk and ask them if they have time to talk. And be prepared for the possibility that they might say 'no'. They may be on a roll, or working to a deadline. Respect that.
4. Have an E-mail Protocol. Never check your e-mails first thing. You will end up going off in all sorts of directions responding to incoming e-mails, and not working on your To-Do List until well into the day. This causes that 'swamped feeling ', which is not a good one. If you need anything from a co-worker, or somebody outside your organization, and you need it urgently, ie within 3 hours use the telephone! This takes the pressure off people to check their e-mail every 20 minutes in case there may be something urgent in it. Try to limit checking your e-mail to 3 or 4 times daily. Some organizations even have official e-mail free days. Intel have an initiative in place to train their workers to e-mail more efficiently.
5. Create a culture of Creativity instead of Information Overload.

• IBM's 'Think Fridays' were put in place to free Fridays up, so that employees have peace of mind to consider, experimentwith, and talk about new ideas.
• With Google's '20% Time', Google is re-thinking the way companies value time. Employees are told to take 20% of their work time to do whatever they like (legally and ethically of course!)
• 3M's '15% Time' for employees to pursue individual projects gave rise to Scotchtape and Sticky Notes'.

The challenge here is to maintain and improve productivity, despite the rising tide of information that comes to us from every angle. But with an awareness of the issues, and a plan to make some changes at individual and organizational levels should see a happier workforce, better work-life balance, and good increases in productivity.

This article was aritten by Valerie Redmond, co-founder of RWorks.