Jessica Harris has written a great article describing the dramatic loss in productivity due to interruptions by email messages and other distractions. She describes the impact of “task mismanagement” as follows:

Unfortunately, the time and productivity lost due to task mismanagement is profound. According to Inc., the estimated cost of lost productivity due to multitasking is $450 billion, and the costs to the individual are just as dire.

Among them:

• We spend an average of just 1 minute and 15 seconds on a task before being interrupted.
• It takes an average of 25 minutes to resume a task after being interrupted.
• Heavily multitasking can temporarily lower your IQ by up to 15 points.

That’s right, it’s literally making us dumber.

Common sense and personal experience suggests that her observations have merit. In her article she makes some good suggestions on how to minimize the impact of these distractions. She encourages us to schedule meetings on specific days and deal with our email/phone messages in batches at specific times. The net impact of these strategies is to create blocks of uninterrupted time to enhance productivity.  For days in which we simply cannot avoid the distractions – she recommends using those days to address mundane tasks which do not require much critical thinking.

Read her article