Everybody knows this all too well. You’re finally making progress on that report, when suddenly you see an incoming email in the corner of your eye. Let me check. You are preparing for an important meeting, when you suddenly hear that well-known ping from a WhatsApp. You take a look. Or, you want to check the status of that particular project in Salesforce, and before you know it, you’re chatting with a colleague about something completely unrelated. All these times when you switch tasks and contexts undermine your productivity. In this blog Kyung de Jong-Dijkman, Salesforce Administrator at Vloeiend IT, gives you a few tips to stay sharp in a world full of distractions.
Effortless driving from a hundred kilometers per hour to walking pace
According to the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, cognitive flexibility – our brain’s ability to switch between different situations – is very important. For example, we can drive on the highway at a hundred kilometers per hour, but we know that we have to slow down the moment we enter a residential area. Fortunately. However, the fact that we are able to constantly switch between contexts does not mean that it is always wise. It causes time loss and a greater chance of error.
Decreased focus
The problem is that usually you are still thinking about a previous task when you switch to a new task at work, a phenomenon known as attention residue. The result? Decreased focus. The new task does not get your full attention because you are still partially focused on your previous task. According to a 2008 study from the University of California, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds for people to recover from an interruption and regain full focus on the task at hand.
How do you limit the negative effects of context switching?
Use standard apps from Salesforce and Microsoft. There are several apps from Microsoft and Salesforce that can help you focus. For example, Salesforce has a handy Task list that helps you organize and prioritize your tasks. And with Einstein Activity Capture, you have all your email, calendar entries, and contacts available in both Salesforce and Outlook.
No more switching between applications
What is also enormously helpful to stay focused, is if you always have the right information at hand when you need it. In Salesforce you know exactly where to find information and with the Salesforce add-on FILE 365 you can simply open your Microsoft 365 files directly from Salesforce, including all the smart functionalities that Microsoft offers you. This way you create the optimal workflow and minimize the number of actions. Distractions? There’s no time for that at all!
Interested?
FILE 365 integrates Microsoft 365 and Salesforce. Documents associated with a record in Salesforce are stored in SharePoint, but can be accessed from both Salesforce and SharePoint. Open and edit files directly from Salesforce with one click! Curious? Request a demo now without obligation! We’d love to get to know you.
