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Constantly responding to email, text message and phone calls forces the individual to engage in what is called multitasking. However, this is ore rightly defined as task switching. You are not doing several tasks, instead, you are switching back and forth from one task to another and then back again. According to one study, it takes you about seventeen minutes after you have broken off a takes to respond to an incoming message for you to get back on task again.
Throughout the day, your attention switches back and forth, like a windshield wiper, seldom completing anything of value. When you add in social media and the obsession that many people have with checking Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you have a formula for career disaster. This is why they say, social networking is social not working.
The solution is simple. Leave things off. Check your email twice a day at 11 am and at 3 pm. Other than that turn everything off so that you can dedicate yourself single mindedly to the task at hand.
