Recovering from information overload

Always-on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity, and making us unhappy.

In this article posted in the McKinsey Quarterly, the authors recognize that "for all the benefits of the information technology and communications revolution, it has a well-known dark side: information overload and its close cousin, attention fragmentation. These scourges hit CEOs and their colleagues in the C-suite particularly hard because senior executives so badly need uninterrupted time to synthesize information from many different sources, reflect on its implications for the organization, apply judgment, make trade-offs, and arrive at good decisions."

The article discusses the perils of multitasking and how to regain control of your workday by creating solo time, deciding what you will and won't read in your inbox, ensuring you get down time every day, and rethinking about how you work.  

The article, Recovering from information overload, is posted in our business article library.  Click here to go there.

The authors are Derek Dean and Caroline Webb.  Derek Dean is an alumnus of McKinsey’s San Francisco office, where he was a director; Caroline Webb is a principal in the London office.

Worn Out at Work?

In the AMA's Leader's Edge BLOG, Jon Gordon discusses "Twelve Common Workplace Behaviors That Drain Everyone's Energy" and how to counteract them.  It's a good post and worth reading.  The 12 behaviors are listed below.  The full article is available in our business article library.  


1. The Energy Vampire Attack :  DON’T: Let negativity become your go-to response. There’s nothing more draining than a boss or coworker who is constantly negative. I call these folks “energy vampires.” They are never happy, rarely supportive, and constantly nay-saying any and all ideas and suggestions that aren’t their own. According to them, you might as well give up before you start.


2. The Out-of-Control Complain Train:  DON’T: Give in to the temptation to whine. It’s a well-known phenomenon that can have catastrophic consequences: One person’s complaint resonates with someone else, who then proceeds to add grievances to the pile, which prompts yet another individual to throw in her two (negative) cents…and so on. Before you know it, everyone is complaining, and any work that gets done thereafter is marred by a bad attitude. 

3. The Vicious Voicemail (or Email):  DON’T: Leave critical or harsh messages on voicemail or send them to an email inbox. Nine times out of ten, these critiques seem much more vehement and condemnatory than they actually are. Plus, any communication you send via electronic methods can potentially last forever. Not only could your words come back to haunt you, they’ll also be a constant reminder to your coworker or employee of his or her supposed shortcomings. 

4. The Loaded Monday Morning Inbox :  DON’T: Overwhelm your team with a mountain of e-mails before the week is under way. If you’re finishing up your own to-do list late on a Friday night, or if you’re simply trying to get a jumpstart on the week ahead, it can be tempting to dish out the details and to-dos as you think of them. After all, if you wait ’til Monday morning, you might forget to tell those who need to know! However, coming in to an inbox of fifty-seven new messages is draining and makes folks feel like they’re fighting an uphill battle from the start. 

5. The Busy Bee Bamboozle:  DON’T: Confuse activity with progress. You know the person. She’s always soooo busy but doesn’t ever seem to meet deadlines or get anything done. When teams are being formed, people secretly hope she isn’t assigned to theirs. She’s living proof of the fact that just because your day is full of things to do doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re getting them done.

 6. The Low Performer Look-Away:  DON’T: Let subpar work slide. Simply put, low performers drag the rest of the team down. They are like a cancer inside your organization, creating resentment and generating more work for everyone else. Moreover, if you allow them to linger and thrive for too long, your best employees will move on to a more productive environment.

7. The Unclear Communiqué:  DON’T: Assume others have all the information they need, or that something you know isn’t really all that important. These hastily drawn conclusions that result from chronic poor communication can lead to serious mistakes and major missed opportunities. Plus, lack of clarity is incredibly frustrating to those who must work with you. When employees, coworkers, or supervisors have to spend their time tracking you down for clarification, rather than getting the communication from you that they need, productivity falls and creativity is stifled. 

8. The Disorganization Drag-Down: DON’T: Allow disorganization to impede productivity. If you’re managing or leading a company, heading up a big project, or traveling nonstop, it’s likely you’ve lost an e-mail, important paper, phone number, or pie chart or two (or three or four) in your day. You’re busy, and that’s understandable. Constant disorganization can drain your employees and coworkers if they always have to cover your tracks. It may not always be possible, and accidents do happen—but not being able to find the quarterly report for the third meeting in a row sets a bad example, and it depletes others of the energy they could be putting towards other, more productive work. 

 9. The Hasty Plate Clear-Off:  DON’T: Sacrifice quality on the altar of expediency. There’s a lot of work to do, and you (understandably) want to get your own tasks done so you don’t hold up others. However, moving through assignments quickly in order to get them off your own plate can also mean that you’re piling the work on someone else. If you’ve rushed, you’re more likely to have made mistakes and been sloppy, which isn’t fair to the person who gets the assignment after you.

10. The Chronic Deadline Dodge:  DON’T: Allow unmet deadlines to throw everything and everyone off-track. With all the unexpected obstacles you face in a workday, it’s not always easy to meet deadlines. And yes, sometimes it’s impossible—but those times should be few and far between. When people chronically miss deadlines, it’s a sure sign of a cultural issue. Either people aren’t giving it their all—or they’re truly overburdened. Either way, your company’s productivity will suffer. 

11. The Unattainable Atta-Boy (or Atta-Girl!):  DON’T: Get so caught up in what’s coming down the pike that you forget to acknowledge what’s happening now. Most managers and business leaders would agree that they feel a lot of pressure. It can be hard for them to constantly be the ones catching the heat from the higher-ups while the rest of the employees have only their own goals to meet and worry about. However, when responsibilities give you to-do tunnel vision and cause you to skimp on the “job well dones,” employees can get discouraged in a hurry—especially if you immediately ask about another goal that’s gone unmet or push more work at them to try and make up for losses in other areas. 

12. The Blame Game :  DON’T: Point fingers at others in order to take the heat off of yourself. A mistake is made, the boss is mad, a deadline is missed. If all eyes are on your team and you start pointing fingers, you could be making a huge mistake. If your employees or your coworkers don’t think you shoulder your share of the blame or are unapproachable when it comes to constructive criticism, they’ll start to shut down toward you. 

See what Jon writes about the ways to combat these 12 energy draining situations.  The full article is available in our business article library.