The average white-collar worker spends a whopping 6 hours a day on email according to an Adobe workplace survey.

And that’s without counting other distractions – just straight email time.

Focus is the skill you want to excel in the workplace and outperform others.  The person who can eliminate attention leaks is likely to be the most employable.

Ways to cut off attention leaks:

• Turn off notifications – You’ll just keep going with distractions if you see them pop up all the time on devices.
• Too much information hurts – We become overcome with too much information and anything additional tends to slip away from our brains – a good reason not to keep bombarding yourself with information of all kinds while trying to work.
• Multitasking is an attention leak – More useful is to prioritize the 20% of what you have to do which will bring you 80% of your productivity.  Do less to accomplish more and plug the attention leaks.
• Limit focused time – Pick a time period – say an hour – when you can focus on your work, plug attention leaks and minimize the flow of too much information.  Then take a break.
• Don’t think – When I face a problem, I try to erase everything and keep the mind blank and sure enough the answer rises to the top effortlessly.

Attention can be cultivated but without exercise, it becomes inefficient and non-productive.

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