There’s so much to love about modern social and communication tech, like Slack, WhatsApp, and even email, although I’m unsure if email would be considered “modern” or not. So much that we don’t even need to list the benefits.
But there are a few downsides and one is particularly relevant here: they kill focus.
When you’re getting a ping, ping, ping every three minutes, you can’t concentrate on a problem for more than three-minute increments.
One downside to this is that, without focus and concentration, you just can’t do a good job. But the power of focus and doing high-quality work is outside the scope of this series of making sure your clients fall in love with you.
But there is a second problem: it gives your client or boss the message that you’re not focusing. Imagine you hire a chef, but he cooks in your kitchen when you’re not at home. And every time you WhatsApp him a question about the food, he always reads it within 5 seconds and responds within 15.
On the one hand, that’s good: I’ve previously argued in favor of fast responses.
On the other hand, there is a downside to responding too fast.
If the chef responds to you seconds after every single message, you think, “How can the chef focus on studying the ingredients, or mixing in the perfect proportions, if he has his phone out and is looking at it every single moment I spot-check?”
The answer is: you can’t, and he can’t. He’s clearly not focusing and thus he’ll do a worse job.
And you will realize that, which is why you will be frustrated.
There is an easy solution: schedule times of focus and times to be interrupted in your work. You can check Slack and email and WhatsApp in the morning between this and that hour, and then in the afternoon between that and that other hour. There are many ways to do that breakdown, but periods of work in which you turn off all communication so you can focus have magical effects on your work, and translate that to your client and boss, as well.
