your alarm extra early, at 8 a.m. at the office, coffee at the ready because... you're finally going to finish that heavy file that's causing you headaches until noon today! Action darn it!

But then Jeannine comes in. And disappears again. Repelled by de Jos. Followed in the wake by Layla. Meanwhile, the phone rings... malfunctions, gosh! What is the result at noon?

Nothing?

Fault! There are indeed and always results: you are completely overworked, they say in Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands... Better known under great stress in Flanders.
If this feels good for you... keep doing it! If you want to change this, read on...

How does your brain work?

A brain - I assume yours too - takes a while to reach an alpha state, where attention can be better focused on something. Just look it up with your chatgpt. Focus. If you are continuously disturbed -and we are already a healthy dose of disturbed-, you are stuck in a beta state -just look that up-, where you can indeed react more quickly but you are also more tense, nervous and the memory works less well. So make sure you are not disturbed - especially for more complicated tasks that require more concentration!

Leave me alone!

That's not possible with us! Aunt Pis, then. The question is whether it's really not possible. Do you rather ask the question who is possible?
With such a question, you lead your brain to creative solutions, such as a turn role where you are left alone, work after hours, redistribution of work, turn on the answering machine - after you discuss this together -, review opening hours or accessibility, etc...

Look at the banks and municipalities that work behind closed doors in this way. Files are becoming increasingly complicated and require focus without disruption. Perhaps not entirely customer-oriented - they should have communicated that better - but rightly so, in my opinion. In this way, they have at least ensured that they can stay on task, allowing them to support you more effectively - faster and certainly with more quality

And in practice?

Those times that I myself - together with the team - initiated this myself, it turned out - after an adjustment period - that not only productivity increased, but also... collegiality! After all, everyone knew... my tour is still coming. So just do it!

What else to do to prevent distractions?

Find out here:
clean up, make sure you have an overview!
stay out of your mailbox: start in your agenda!

Take action!

1. how many hours of alpha tasks - work that require your concentration - do you have in your range of tasks?
2. if you want to increase your productivity - and mood -, make sure you are disturbed as little as possible while performing it!
3. imagine that this is possible, what would this do to you? And what is the first step towards this?

Are you a supervisor?

• If you really want to promote your productivity and team spirit, make sure everyone in your team is left alone during the alpha tasks.
• Even worse: if you don't do this, it will inevitably come at the cost of efficiency & gut fuhl and... sooner or later, you'll go out of control. Guaranteed.

psssst: by the way, did you know that your biggest productivity result can be achieved with just that buffering? Once in a while, your schedule is never right: prevent, buffer and keep it realistic...