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The pace of work has intensified in recent years, experts say, as professionals are inundated with a growing volume of tasks, emails, messages and meeting requests that they must read, process, respond to and action.
Known as “digital debt” (a term coined by Microsoft), this phenomenon of having too much communication work to do and not enough time to do it is becoming a common experience. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index has found that almost two in three people say they do not have enough time to do their work due to digital debt – and it is having an impact on innovation. “The workplace technologies that were touted as being the silver bullet to our productivity have actually had the opposite effect,” says Dr Kristy Goodwin, productivity and digital wellbeing expert and author of Dear Digital, We Need to Talk. “With such a barrage of tasks, our brains are tricked into thinking every single one is urgent and important,” she says. “It means we lose our ability to logically triage the flow, and we become chronically overwhelmed, stressed and distracted.” Organisational psychologist Dr Amantha Imber, founder of behavioural science firm Inventium, says the natural response is to think myopically and tackle the less onerous tasks first, which leaves no time for the important projects or creativity needed to shift the needle on big goals. “It then becomes a vicious cycle, because it feeds your stress,” says Imber, host of the How I Work podcast. Time management expert Kate Christie says there is no magic remedy for the problem, but different frameworks can help, depending on a person’s workstyle. For the expert's six tips, read them here in INTHEBLACK Comments are closed.
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