News

Imagine a typical Monday morning at the office. Your schedule is full with meetings, you have ten reports that need to be completed by tomorrow, and your boss is still waiting for those elusive proposals from last week. Yet, you are drawn to check your Facebook, make tea for everyone at the office, and post that one funny cat photo on Twitter.
Procrastination tends to be a familiar part of our personal and professional lives. In fact, a survey by how2become.com found that over 50% of workers perform non-work related activities that reduce their productivity at work. Social media seems to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to procrastination - mostly because we underestimate the time it takes to check all those tweets and Facebook posts. So much so, that we lose up to three hours every working day not doing what we should really be getting on with. In a highly competitive and fast-paced business environment, any loss of productivity can lead to a loss of money and clients. It has been estimated that performing non-work related activities whilst at work has cost UK businesses approximately £76 billion (YouGov, 2014).
Research suggests that employees are most likely to engage in non-work related activities when they are bored or stressed. Personal concerns, low job satisfaction, and lack of motivation all contribute to the likelihood of getting distracted whilst at work.  Boredom on the other hand has been linked to high turnover rates and job dissatisfaction – both of which contribute to loss of money for businesses. 
Having said that, a little bit of procrastination isn't necessarily a bad thing. According to Professor John Perry's book "The Art of Procrastination", engaging in non-work related activities for short periods of time can actually boost productivity by shortening personal to-do lists and letting us focus on our work. Additionally, allowing employees to perform some personal tasks during working hours can reduce stress and increase satisfaction.
Whether procrastination at work is a good or bad thing is open to debate. Whilst it's important to keep productivity high at the workplace, a bit of distraction every now and then may actually be useful.