098: Conquering Digital Distractions with Dr. Kristy Goodwin

In this week’s episode, we're chatting with Dr. Kristy Goodwin who is on a mission to promote employee wellbeing and bolster workplace productivity. With the pandemic accelerating the work from home (WFH) movement, how we work online and how we disconnect while living in the same place is more important than ever. 

“I've never had a genius idea looking in my inbox or working in an Excel spreadsheet. I have most certainly had one when I've been swimming or been for a run, or in the shower. And this is because our brain needs that mind-wandering mode. And we just don't get enough of that because we now fill every moment of whitespace with a digital device.”  - Dr. Kristy Goodwin

Put simply, she helps people thrive online.

We have all accepted that technology is an integral part of our professional and our personal lives to the point that it's impacting our physical and mental health. We also know that it's having a very significant and pronounced impact on our productivity.

Kristy studies how our brain and body operate in this digital landscape. She takes research and science on this issue and translates it into practical realistic strategies that people can use to utilize technology in a way that aligns with our neurobiology.

Listen to our full episode to see how Kristy works with companies to help teams with their digital well-being by implementing her peak performance strategies in this digital landscape.


Connect with Kristy
Website - https://drkristygoodwin.com 
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kristy-goodwin 
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/drkristygoodwin
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/drkristy 


Connect with Winston
LinkedIn     https://www.linkedin.com/in/winstonfaircloth 
Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/forloveofteam
Instagram   https://www.instagram.com/forloveofteam 
Twitter        https://twitter.com/forloveofteam

Transcript

Kristy Goodwin  0:00  
I don't know about you, Winston, but I've never had a genius ID in my inbox or in an Excel spreadsheet. I have most certainly had one when I've been swimming or been for a run or been in the shower. And this is because our brain needs that mind wandering mode. And we just don't get enough of that because we now feel every moment of whitespace with a digital device.

Winston Faircloth  0:26  
Hey there, it's Winston Faircloth, and this is for love of team, the podcast dedicated to helping you grow a team you love multiplying your impact, income and freedom in business and life. On today's episode, I'm going to bring you an interview with my friend Dr. Christy Goodwin, having personally experienced how and always on digital culture is compromising people's well being and is counter to our optimal sustainable performance. award winning researcher and speaker Dr. Christie Goodwin is on a mission to promote employee wellbeing and bolster workplace productivity. What I love about this interview is she's going to share practical brain based techniques to tame tech habits and the latest evidence based strategies to decode the neurobiology of peak performance in the technological era. Christy is bringing a lot of wisdom here, tons of practical experience. And I know you're going to enjoy this interview, Dr. Christy Govan, I'm so thankful that you're here on the for love of team podcast.

Winston Faircloth  1:30  
Welcome. Great to be here. Thank you for having me. Wonderful.  So tell our audience a little bit about you where you are in the kind of work that you're doing today.

Kristy Goodwin 1:40  
So literally speaking, I am in Australia, in Sydney, I am a digital well being and peak performance researcher. And what I do is help to decode the neurobiology of peak performance in the digital age. Put simply, I help people to thrive online, I think we all accept that technology has become an integral part of our professional and our personal lives. And we are recognizing that it's having a huge impact on every facet of our lives. It's impacting our physical health, it's having an impact on our mental well being. And we also know that it's having a very significant and pronounced impact on our productivity. So I study how our brain and body operates in this digital landscape. And I take that research and science and translated into practical realistic strategies so that people can use the technology, I don't propose that we digitally amputate ourselves. But how can we leverage the digital technologies that have seeped into every crevice of our lives? But how can we use them in ways that are aligned with our neurobiology? So I work with organizations both big and small, to help their teams with digital wellbeing and with peak performance strategies in this digital landscape.

Winston Faircloth  2:55  
And so much has changed with the pandemic. We were just talking about this before we hit record, you know, February, a year ago, it was a pretty standard work environment. And we had a lot of digital distractions there. Right? Yes. But then, and now. And now we've gone into remote work. Many parts of the globe are still working remotely, and some are in hybrid. So what what are what were the impacts that you saw happen with your clients in terms of digital distractions in teams?

Kristy Goodwin 3:25  
Yes, the three big things I've seen that were thrust onto us because of remote work was that our number one, our digital load increased exponentially. And I'll go through each of these in a moment. The second thing that happened was that we started to work in ways that created what we call confused cognitive associations. When we started working from home This poses significant challenges to our brains and our bodies as well. And the third thing that has really it's always been there, it's been an undercurrent, but it's certainly being perpetuated and amplified by the pandemic that is always on culture. So the first one here, digital load has increased. research was conducted by Microsoft earlier this year, and they examined over 30,000 Microsoft users digital habits and behaviors. What they found was that during the pandemic, we have seen a 148% increase in meetings, most of which are now virtual, they are around 45 minutes in duration, most meetings, we have seen a 45% increase in teams chats, 42% of which are occurring outside regular work hours, most chats are now responded to within five minutes. So you get the ping of a notification and you are responsive. And I think the scariest statistic was that they have seen a an increase in February 2021 40 point 6 billion more emails were sent than in February 2020. 

So I think most of us intuitively experience digital load has increased exponentially and We are recognizing that many people are experiencing digital burnout or digital fatigue, people who are physically and mentally depleted from being perpetually tethered to technology. So that leads into my second point that we're not, because we were literally often just taking out laptops home and said, See you later, we will invite you back to the office when it when it is safe to do so. And so many of us started working remotely, often in our bedrooms, in the kitchen table. And what this did from a neuro neurological perspective is it created these confused cognitive associations, our brain is amazing, and it is constantly scanning the environment, even if we're unaware of it for what we can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. This activates neural pathways in our brain to then determine the behaviors that we instigate. So if we see a coffee cup, it might instigate the thought that I'm here to smell coffee, we started working on our kitchen table or in our bed. 

And this created these model associations are burying saying, hang on my kitchen table is a place where I have rest, where I engage in dialogue where I feel relaxed, and all of a sudden, you're expecting me to do data analysis from an Excel spreadsheets with these conflicting cognitive associations, and people then would walk past the laptop sitting on the lounge either that day or later in the evening. And it would be a psychological trigger, not just check my emails then which I think leads into the third point is we have really amplified this always on culture, because we haven't and what I'm doing with a lot of organizations at the moment in Australia and internationally is helping them establish their what I call digital guardrails, establishing the parameters, the norms, the digital behaviors that they want to embed at an organizational level. So people aren't feeling obliged to reply to emails at midnight, people aren't getting in the shower and checking this smartwatch and being responsive. And the reason that I think is always on culture has grown during the pandemic. I mean, I'm not denying it. I think we've it's been there for a long time, but it has certainly become more pronounced is because we now no longer have obvious tangible in office measures of productivity. When we used to congregate in the office, we could see who stayed really late, we could see who was putting in the hours now with distributed teams are markers of productivity, who's responding to the email who's who's replying to that slack message? You know, isn't it great, that person's on every single virtual call. And so we're using those almost like a proxy for our productivity. And I think this has created what I call digital presenteeism people who are always

Winston Faircloth  7:43  
Oh so much to unpack there. I've been a remote worker now for going on 20 years. And I know how difficult a challenge was for me in terms of making that transition. But for a lot of organizations, the culture was not really prepared for for this sudden change the sudden pivot. So that also increased the load because people are feeling because they're asynchronous. Now they have all these other tools at their disposal, right?

Kristy Goodwin 8:10  
Absolutely. And I think it was that instantaneous change that there was no no time for organizational preparation, there was no time to embed really good practices, literally many people, some of them didn't even take a laptop home, they got their desktop computer and the office chair, threw it in the back of the car and didn't come back for 12 1518 months. So I think it was that under preparedness, I also think we have seen really radical shifts. Microsoft CEO was recently reported saying that most organizations underwent two years of digital transformation in two months. So I think it's those two colliding factors that we weren't prepared. And then we had to embrace a whole myriad of new technologies in a rather rapid way. And again, perhaps have done it in ways that aren't aligned with our brain and body's best practices.

Winston Faircloth  9:02  
You know, when you were talking about our associations in terms of the physical location, and that was one of the big challenges when I started working remote was having a dedicated space for that so that I could associate work with that and leisure with other parts of the house. Many families, they didn't have that luxury of pre planning that nor having the room for it, right?

Kristy Goodwin  9:27  
That's right. So one of the things I say to people if you don't have a space, like in an ideal sense, we would have a dedicated workspace again, where we can create those cognitive associations that this is where I sit down and I do my mentally robust work. For many of us we don't have a physical option. We're probably trying to also homeschool children simultaneously sitting in a room in isolation whilst it would be ideal for our productivity probably not better for us if so, what I say to people is can you sit in the same position we know brain will recall more information when we work at a consistent space. It's called state dependent recall. And what it means is our brain has got those mental associations, it's almost mapped out neurologically what we're going to see, hear, smell, taste and touch in that particular context. So even if it's sitting at the same spot in the dining room table, the other thing that I say to people is start to create some Power Up and Power Down rituals for your day. What this will do to you is, what it will do to your brain is send clear signals that now is the time that we're going to start time to ramp up our energy, it could be as simple as having a particular beverage of choice. It could be listening to a playlist, it could be doing our court, the virtual commute instead of driving to work, could you walk around the block with the dog and then sit down at your spot equally at the end of the day? How are you going to signal to your brain that the day is done and very important, if you you're not in a position where you can physically work in a segregated spot away from your regular family or home life, please hide the laptop or the desktop computer, I know some people have got a permanent fixed position. And it can be cumbersome and ties into you know, put the whole desktop away. But even putting your sheet over the top of it can be really clear signal that the day is done. Many of us just keep working because we see our device and it's a psychological trigger for us to reach for it.

Winston Faircloth  11:23  
Can you go into the load factor? Because not only is it the amount of meetings and the number of messages, but it's the proliferation of multiple tools, I think, in many corporate teams that has been very confusing to people.

Kristy Goodwin 11:39  
Yes, I'm hearing this from many of my corporate clients, they're saying they're using it will be expected to use a myriad of software and platforms and applications, many of them that are duplicating tasks. I was working with a team recently, and they said look, they were having conversations on teams, they were having conversations in a whatsapp group, and there were conversations on emails, and it was for want of a better word, a dog's breakfast, a digital dog's breakfast, it was a real Miss. And again, it contributed to that. Cognitive Load people feeling like they were perpetually distracted. Before the pandemic research told us that most knowledge workers can do focused work for roughly six minutes before a digital distraction diverts their attention. There's unpublished research during the pandemic, it's soon to be published. Hopefully that is saying that is not close to three minutes, three to four minutes before there's the ping of an email, the team's reminder, social media notification, and this is really distracting to our brain. We know it takes the average adult 23 minutes and 15 seconds to reorient their attention after distraction. So if we're doing deep focused work and our email pings to get back into that deep focus state, roughly 23 minutes that is hugely costly for our productivity and our well being,

Winston Faircloth  12:58  
How much of how much of these distractions are just us not having proper boundaries, not setting and taking our own agency in how we are interacting in the workplace. I know it's easy for a leader to say that right? They seem to have a lot more autonomy and control that even for folks who are not in the in the C suite, how much control and agency and boundaries can we implement in our in our day to day work?

Kristy Goodwin 13:26  
I think you're spot on that Winston, I agree at an individual level, I think the onus really should be on individuals where possible. And obviously in alignment with your role, you know, if you're in customer service, and being responsive is often a fundamental component of your tasks. So some of this depends on the type of function that you play within an organization. But I agree wholeheartedly that a lot of this comes down to individual what I call borders and boundaries now with your own personal norms about I'm going to disable all alerts and notifications for the next hour and a half while I work on my report. So one of the pillars that I talked about peak performance in a digital age is establishing those borders and boundaries. I also think as you exemplified that our leaders tend to have more autonomy and control over how they operate their day. So this is why I'm encouraging organizations come up with their digital guardrails, I call it colloquially I say this is how we manage our tech expectations. So we clearly articulate what are the you know, how responsive Do I need to be to an internal email? If something warrants my urgent attention? How will I be contacted rather than people feeling like they constantly need to be skimming everything so that they can keep on top of it? Some organizations we are now I'm now working with we're creating what we call collaboration hours. So we articulate a crossover period where everybody is available so that when you do need that instant information when you need an update or some data or Report, you've got that accessible. So there's no bottlenecks. One of the things we heard from hybrid work is that when people were working all sorts of hours, there often wasn't that crossover time. And this created bottlenecks in some projects. So I think establishing those personal borders and boundaries, and that is successful if it's underpinned by organizational guardrails and boundaries to

Winston Faircloth  15:22  
so important, I guess I learned this a little bit the hard way when I was working in in my tech company, because we had people in 10 different locations for different time zones. And I was causing most of the chaos as the leader, because because I never would never considered the impact that these interruptions would have on others. Yeah.

Kristy Goodwin 15:45  
And I think when you know, I mean, I live by Maya Angelo saying, we know better, you do better, and the teams I work with when I run workshops, and explain to them that the tangible research based costs of being distracted, I think we all instinctively know, like, we're living in that perpetual, chaotic disrupted state that we're not productive, that we are stressed. But when you can show them, you know, in some of my sessions show what's happening in their brain in terms of their stress levels, when we go from one video meeting to the next to the next. We can't argue with science. So I think when you understand the science, that's underpinning the way we feel and why we behave, I think that I think then that we're better placed to make decisions and make those changes that we do need to work in alignment. I mean, I often say we're not machines, we are not designed to be plugged in 24. Seven, we have to map out our new ways of working to our neurobiology. And that's just so important because the technology is here to stay. I think also, hybrid work is going to be the new way forward. And technology will underpin that. So we've got to get this right,

Winston Faircloth  16:51  
it's so important to you're creating a digital culture in one way, right? I mean, it's, we've had a physical culture in the way that we've grown up and work together in a collaborative location. But now we're creating new digital norms that can really enhance our experiences, team members.

Kristy Goodwin 17:10  
Absolutely. I mean, one of the things I'm working with organizations at the moment is to say, look for knowledge workers, the silver lining of the pandemic, I truly believe is that we no longer have a nine to five schedule, I think we are no no longer bound by that schedule. And let's be honest, very few people ever work nine to five. But what we do have now that we are not constrained to being in the office at particular times of the day is we've got an opportunity, there's a lot of discussion around flexible work arrangements, I don't deny that is a benefit of the pandemic. But what I truly believe is the silver lining is that we've now got the opportunity to create productive work arrangements. And one of the key things that I get teams to do is to get individuals in that team to identify what we call their chronotype. And your chronotype is your biological predisposition to be focused and alert at certain times of the day. And it also dictates when you naturally want to fall asleep. Now, if you know your chronotype, you fall into one of three categories. 

You're either luck, like I am fire on all cylinders early in the morning, you're the person that's sending out the ATM invitation for a meeting at the other end of the spectrum, we've got our hours, these are people that fire on all cylinders at night they receive your ATM calendar invite and they panic, they think are normally asleep. Still, most of us, statistically speaking, fit into the middle bird category. So energy tends to peak between 10am and roughly 1pm. The idea of the benefit, I believe of knowing your chronotype is now you can structure your day within reason. So you're doing your deep productive work at your chronotypes Peak Performance windows so those middle birds would be getting the crux their deep work done during that time of the day. That is when I say to people, you have to build a fortress around your focus. It is that time of the day where you have to disable as many digital distractions as possible. It is that window of the day where you don't want to be booking in virtual meetings or calls that would be better off placed when your prime time isn't at its peak. That's why we shouldn't be nibble I say to people, one of the worst things we can do for our productivity and performance is to nibble on our inbox throughout the day, it puts a huge dent in it. What we're better off doing is doing our emails when our energy is waning, because for most of us, it's not our deep, critical thinking task. And it should be pushed to some of the parameters of our day.

Winston Faircloth  19:41  
We need to have you in every company that I've worked with. Because this is this is the kind of culture that I think really builds winning teams when you understand the differences in people and what they bring to the to the team and also what really promotes collaboration within the team.

Kristy Goodwin 19:59  
It will really does. And it's such a simple thing I often say to people, we're working with our brain and body when we work on that our workday to our chronotype. We are we flow downstream. Before the pandemic, it was suggested that 80% of adults had work schedules that conflicted with their chronotype 80% of us, you know, very few of us fire on all cylinders between those nine to five parameters, yet, that was the expected norm. So I really truly believe that that knowing this makes a huge difference not only to your productivity not so we can squash more into our days, so we can get the right work done at the right time and have more margin more more time in our life to do the things we really want to do. So it's a win win situation.

Winston Faircloth  20:44  
Well, I know you spent a lot of time documenting your four pillars of peak performance in the digital world. So I know we've covered a few of these. But would you like to recap those and go into that?

Kristy Goodwin20:55  
Based on research, I started to look at what is it that underpins really successful teams, those teams that are really thriving. And this was a system pre pandemic. And thankfully, it has held up the framework of hybrid and remote work. And but I really started to look at what science and also practice was showing me in terms of what are those those teams that are thriving in this predominantly digital landscape? What are they doing, and again, this can be applied at an organizational level, but it also can be applied at a micro individual level. So the first pillar that we have spoken about is establishing your digital borders and boundaries, clearly articulating how when, where, with whom you'll use technology. So you've got those parameters and expectations, delineated. This is really important because we are seeing technology have a significant impact on our physical health. 

Everything from our vision, hearing and our musculoskeletal health and sedentary behavior are being shaped by our digital habits and practices. So we need to have those borders and boundaries. We also need to have those borders and boundaries to optimize our mental well being we know one of the key things that is eroding, and our people with people's mental health in generally in general has been shaped by the pandemic. I think there's very few of us who would acknowledge that it hasn't had some sort of impact on our mental well being. But a key component about screen habits is that our screen habits and behaviors are sabotaging our sleep, many of us are not getting good quality and quantity of sleep because of our blue light exposure. So borders and boundaries is our first one. The second pillar is that we need to apply what I call neuro productivity tactics, we need to apply our knowledge of how the brain works to the digital landscape. So an example here is that chronotype one we just spoke about mapping our workday to our chronotype. Another one I often share with organizations is that our brain is designed to work in I call them digital dashes. 

We are designed to work in sprints not marathons, I share with people that we have an ultradian rhythm, which determines that our energy will peak and trough roughly every 90 minutes that that is how we are hardwired pardon the pun. But we can't outperform that. So we need to work in shorter bursts and have more regular breaks. The third pillar of digital wellbeing is to disable digital distractions, not for the whole day. And you know, I mentioned before, I don't suggest that you digitally amputate yourselves. But at critical periods of the day, try to eliminate the distractions and diversions that are coming your way. 

Can you disable notification on a central notifications you now with most platforms and apps and tools you can bundle or batch your notifications to come through at a set time? Can you create a VIP list of notifications so that critical client or family member can still reach you putting your phone somewhere where you can't see it. A study from the University of Texas told us that just seeing our phone even if it is face down and on silent. If it is in our line of sight. It reduces our cognitive performance by 10%. Just seeing it so pop it in another drawer. It's really quite fascinating. And the fourth pillar of digital wellbeing is digital disconnection. We have to digitally disconnect we have to unplug. And I don't know about you, Winston, but I've never had a genius ID in my inbox or in an Excel spreadsheet. I have most certainly had one when I've been swimming or being for a run or been in the shower. And this is because our brain needs that mind wandering mode. And we just don't get enough of that because we now feel every moment of whitespace with a digital device.

Winston Faircloth  24:35  
Yeah, I mean, think about just my ritual of doing morning walks. One of the things that one of my spiritual directors asked me to do was to consider not having not listening to podcast now Heaven forbid we're on a podcast here. We want people to listen but the invitation was I would get inspiration by by not having earbuds for my morning walk. Give it a try for a few days and see what happens. And it did. I got inspiration for the name of the podcast came on one of those walks when I did not have earbuds in one morning.

Kristy Goodwin  25:10  
Yeah, and it's so true. And it's, I say to teams like being unplugged and creating a culture where rest is revered, it's not seen as a reward. It's almost seen as a responsibility of personal responsibility. We have created a culture of business and a culture of always being on and we, we are not machines, we need unplugged time for our physical health. We need it for our mental well being. But we also need it as you've indicated for our ideation and problem solving and creativity. And that just will not take place. If we are tethered to technology.

Winston Faircloth  25:44  
I know that you you've devoted your career not only to helping corporations, but families and young children as well. So what do you what do you see as some of the best practice staying with companies for in teams for a moment? What are some of the best practices in terms of fostering teamwork and community without undermining our digital well being today,

Kristy Goodwin 26:06  
I think the really critical thing that has to take place and ironically for many distributed teams that takes place online, but it is having open dialogue about how we best embed digital practices in our organization, I think, coming together as a group and having these robust, challenging conversations so that we have buy in from our key stakeholders about how we best embed the technologies, look for the things that aren't working, look for the tools that we're we're doubling up on and eradicate those. But I think that open dialogue is really critical to coming up, as you said before, at establishing that that digital culture that we want to underpin our our team or our organizational culture as well. Technology is embedded in everything. So I think that we need to look at that within that broader context to

Winston Faircloth  26:53  
where you've given us a lot to think about today. And I hope that folks, we're taking great notes. But Christy, if folks want to connect with you, what are the best ways for people to connect with Dr. Kristy.

Kristy Goodwin  27:06  
So I do have some digital places where we can connect, roughly so one of the best places is by my website, I try and keep a regular blog. We're also ironically launching a podcast later this year, just so we can give people what I call bite sized, Euro productivity tactics. So you can be out enjoying your walk and get some ideas there. I'm also most active on LinkedIn, and Instagram. So there's ways that I've tried to disseminate information, and I have got a ebook that I'll share with you Winston afterwards called the five essential digital productivity hacks. So just five ways that you can use technology but use it in ways that will support your well being. So I'm more than happy to share that as well.

Winston Faircloth  27:53  
We'll include all of these links in the show notes. Dr. Christy Goodwin, thank you so much you've given us great things to think about and and let's be intentional about our digital culture. That's that is a real takeaway and an important aspect to digital well being. So thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Kristy Goodwin 28:15  
It's a pleasure. Thank you.

Winston Faircloth  28:17  
Hey, so did you get some great notes out of this interview today? I sure did. It certainly inspired me to be more mindful and more intentional about digital distraction. So think about it. A business you love supported by a team you love. What could be better than that? Or love of team is a leading indicator of your future success, multiplying your impact income and freedom, both in business and in life. Be blessed friends. I'll catch you on the next episode.