distraction – noun – A thing that prevents someone from concentrating on something else. (source: Oxford Dictionaries)

Assuming that we want ourselves and our teams to be concentrating on something productive we need to minimise distractions in the workplace.

Some people are no doubt better at filtering out distractions than others and some distractions are easier to filter out than others.

For many the most distracting thing in the workplace is email. There are some simple techniques for limiting the power of email to distract. Turn off all the notifications; or even switch off the email client altogether and turn it on periodically to catch up. You don’t need to reply to that email within minutes of receiving it and anyone who expects you to respond to email that quickly doesn’t have your best interests at heart.