I used to come into work, get some coffee, sit in a cube, put headphones on, and then spend my day stuck in the world of SQL Server. Solving problems, working on trouble tickets, analyzing performance and more. An occasional meeting interrupted me, and an empty coffee cup interrupted me more, but for the most part I worked as a DBA with headphones on, doing my job. However I wasn't perfect. There were times that I surfed the web, looking for news, answering questions on forums or more.  Add this to the conversations with co-workers about non-work topics and it's clear that 8 hours at work isn't 8 hours of work.

I'm not alone, and most of my co-workers engaged in other sorts of distractions as well. We weren't alone either, and this survey from Salary.com shows some interesting results. Many people spend time on the Internet on non-work tasks, and I think that's OK. I also think it's not much different from the pre-Internet days of work. Smoke breaks, random walks around the building, water cooler time, I think some people would be surprised how much time they spend away from "work" if their movements and efforts were tracked by the minute.

As humans, we aren't going to focus on a single task for a long period of time unless it doesn't require much thought. For anyone that has to think, however, distractions are necessary over time. Extreme concentration in one area can easily leave us locked in to a particular solution, creating tunnel vision. It's also hard, and requires some downtime to recharge. That downtime at work can easily come from a few distractions that let your mind wander.  The best people I've worked with often had short breaks spread in their day. A game of table tennis, playing a song on a guitar, a short conversation, or even working with a co-worker on some problem unrelated to their job. What looked like a waste of time didn't seem to affect their productivity.

Not everyone handles the freedom well, and plenty of people get distracted to the point of being unproductive. However eliminating all distractions doesn't necessarily make them more productive. They'll just find some other way to distract themselves. Great employers look to help people learn to manage themselves better, shortening breaks, learning to tackle problems as a challenge, and perhaps learning to become better at their craft by using some break time to learn more.

Steve Jones

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