Principle 6: Concentrating

Distractions can come in many forms; telephone calls, an attractive man or woman, a visitor, a magazine, or traffic from the street. You should follow these guidelines to minimise distractions:

• If time-consuming distractions come from outside your windows and doors, close them.
• Do not bring newspapers, magazines, junk mail or other potential distractions to your work area.
• Avoid chatty co-workers. Be friendly and sociable to a point, but do not encourage extensive chatting.
• Do not encourage family or friends to call or visit you at work.
• Monitor phone calls. For those who must deal with phone calls, use a secretary, answering service or answering machine to take messages when you need to concentrate for a long period of time. Handle your phone calls when you are least able to concentrate on other work.
• Leave personal matters at home. Do not pay bills or run errands on company time.