Over the years, I have been observing that WhatsApp and other messaging tools are sucking out productivity from the workplace. People work with their phones next to their keyboards and are constantly distracted, this is counter-intuitive to focused “Deep Work”.
As described by Cal Newport in his book, Deep Work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. As we all know that, multi-tasking is very counter-productive and every time you switch tasks you lose mental energy (switching costs).
Solution: Keep your phones face down and check it once every couple of hours or so, If not embracing Distraction Free iPhone setup. Yesterday, in an hour I missed 20 WhatsApp messages, 9 iMessages and 3 phone calls. None of them were neither urgent nor require any action, if immediately responded, would have wasted at-least 30 min.
To learn more about focused productivity check this book – Deep Work by Cal Newport.
Vivek Misra 