Sometimes, our modern technological advances are two edged, and what begins as an improvement may ultimately end up having an unanticipated negative effect on productivity. A recent report by Microsoft illustrates a widespread example of this phenomenon. Trillions of globally aggregated and anonymized Microsoft 365 data bits were used to identify patterns (which are also likely occurring with other, similar platforms). Reviewing these findings, it becomes obvious that workdays have become too long, overly loaded with interruptions, and, thus, less efficient. Let's take a quick look.

The study indicates that many people are online by 6:00 am, evening hours are increasingly being used for meetings, and the average employee sends or receives more than 50 messages outside of typical business hours each day. Weekends are also catching overflow.

An average of 117 emails are received per employee each workday, in addition to 153 Teams messages. Add to that large numbers of meetings, a majority of which are called without prior notice and scheduled in what are normally prime hours for productivity. Data also show a spike in last-minute activity before meetings, such as PowerPoint editing due to related preparation.

It's no surprise that workers are feeling frazzled, frustrated, and fatigued, and burnout is a very real problem. Focus time is almost impossible to find, and there is no longer a real start and finish to the workday. Employees in these types of situations cannot possibly be working at peak productivity or creativity (not to mention the very real quality-of-life problem).

There was a time when communication had to be much more intentional. Not so many years ago, meetings had to be set in advance because being in person was the only option, phone calls cost money, and documents had to be sent in the mail or via an overnight service. The goal with disseminating information was to be efficient and effective, because the process of sharing involved a measurable cost to be weighed against the benefit. Now, it is simple and basically free to drop virtually limitless volumes of information on countless people around the world with the click of a mouse.

Intentional action is needed to manage this ballooning issue or productivity challenges will escalate. A mindset shift is required to understand that, even though barriers to instant communication are essentially gone, each interruption remains costly in terms of productivity. AI is potentially part of the answer (though if not carefully utilized it could exacerbate the problem). If repetitive tasks and communication can be automated, employees can focus on more valuable activities. Working smarter is possible, and better processes can be developed to deal with interruption overload. All that's needed is a little time to focus! Stay safe!