Fix Your Focus At Work (And Get More Done)

We live in a time where it’s never been easier to get things done—and yet, it’s never felt harder to actually do it. The modern workplace is filled with tools meant to boost productivity: email, messaging apps, video calls, shared docs, project boards. In theory, these should help us focus at work. But if you’ve ever ended a day feeling like you were busy all day and still got nothing meaningful done, then you’ve felt the problem firsthand.

And you’re not alone.

According to research, the average employee toggles between apps, platforms, and websites nearly 1,200 times a day. All that switching doesn’t just burn time—it burns focus. It adds up to nearly four hours each week spent simply reorienting your brain after shifting contexts. That’s more time than it takes to drive from Boston to New York. We’re not multitasking—we’re multi-draining.

It’s not just inefficient. It’s overwhelming.

The Myth of More Tools, More Productivity

If each tool we use was designed to make our work easier, then why does it feel like it’s doing the opposite?
Because these tools don’t work in harmony—they compete for our attention. Email demands a quick reply. Slack pings you into a new thread. A meeting pops up on your calendar. A project management notification tells you something is overdue. Each platform is helpful in isolation, but together, they create noise.

That noise fragments our focus. And if you don’t respond fast enough, you risk being labeled unresponsive, unreliable, or worse—not a team player. So we default to being reactive instead of reflective. And instead of progressing, we’re just juggling.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Why You Can’t Focus At Work

The real issue isn’t the tools—it’s how our brains interact with them. The psychological term for what’s happening is context switching. Every time you move from Slack to email, from a spreadsheet to a calendar, your brain has to shift into a new mode. It’s like rebooting a computer every time you click a different tab.

Studies show it can take up to 23 minutes to fully regain focus after a single interruption. That means every tiny distraction—even “just checking email real quick”—can derail meaningful progress.

And your brain isn’t designed to operate this way. It can’t juggle a dozen open loops and hold competing conversations at once. This leads to cognitive overload. It’s exhausting. It’s chaotic. And it makes even simple tasks feel insurmountable.

Stop Treating Your Brain Like a Task Manager

Let’s start with a simple truth: your brain is not a task manager. It’s a thinking engine, not a to-do list. And trying to keep everything in your head is like trying to carry water in a sieve.

Even if you’re good at remembering your tasks, you’re still paying a price. Unfinished tasks tug at your attention—they create background mental noise that pulls focus away from what actually matters.

The solution? Stop storing tasks in your brain. Start writing them down. Not scattered across sticky notes and random apps, but in one trusted system. Research shows that simply writing down your tasks—and how you’ll approach them—makes you far more likely to finish them well .

Create a Single Source of Truth

That brings us to the next shift: build a single source of truth for your work. Choose one tool—just one—to house every task, request, and reminder. That could be a digital task manager, a notes app, or even a notebook. What matters is that every actionable item goes there.

That Slack message with a new request? Capture it in your system. A stray idea in the middle of your Zoom call? Add it to the list.

This turns your system into a funnel: work can come in from anywhere, but it all flows into one place where you make decisions later. This frees up mental bandwidth and gives you more clarity and control over your day.

Organize Work to Make Action Easier

Of course, a list of tasks isn’t helpful if it’s just a long scroll of stress. You need a way to organize your work that makes it easier to act.

That might mean sorting tasks by type: deep work, quick responses, meeting prep. Or you could use a kanban-style board: “To Do,” “Doing,” and “Done.” For example, I organize my computer desktop visually from left to right based on what I need to tackle next. If someone emails me a task, I’ll drag that email to the desktop itself—rightmost means highest priority.

Will your first system be perfect? Probably not. But don’t let that stop you. Trial and error is how you find a method that sticks. The point is to reduce friction and free yourself from decision fatigue when you finally do find time to focus.

Redefine Responsiveness

Another major source of distraction is the pressure to respond instantly. In many workplaces, responsiveness is equated with productivity. And in remote or hybrid environments, managers often use visibility as a proxy for value.
But quick replies don’t equal quality work. In fact, the most productive people and teams set expectations for response times—and protect space for deep focus.

That might look like checking email only twice a day. Or setting “focus hours” where Slack notifications are muted. Or even just using the “mark as unread” feature to buy yourself time to respond intentionally, not reactively.

Final Thoughts

Leaders can play a powerful role here as well. Set norms around what responsiveness really means. Talk openly with your team about what’s urgent, what’s not, and when it’s okay to be heads-down and unreachable.

The key shift is moving from reactive to intentional. And when you do, you not only regain control of your time—you get better work done.

In the end, the goal isn’t to do more. It’s to make more meaningful progress.

That means fewer toggles, fewer tabs, and more time to truly focus at work.

Because focus isn’t just about attention. It’s about intention. And it’s time to take yours back.