Tabless Thursdays to boost productivity?

For some employees, concentrating on one particular task at a time is hard enough. However, add in another one or two concurrently and you will have some serious workflow automation problems.

Multi-tasking employees will have productivity problems in the long term as they juggle jobs, but could a concept dubbed 'Tabless Thursday' help?

In a recent CNN article, psychology researcher David Meyer explained that switching constantly between tasks can cause brief mental blocks. The 'Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching' study found these short disruptions can reduce productivity by up to 40 per cent.

What does Tabless Thursday involve?

In a busy day, tabs can soon build up on employee's screen. A couple for work, some on news websites and one or two on social media, and they all demand our attention.

Health editor James Hamblin shared his views on this subject in a recent video article on the Atlantic. As most of work today, either recruitment or payroll, is completed online, we are never fully focussed on what is in front of us – they is always more to look at.

To combat the time wasting and multiple tabs, Mr Hamblin coined the phrase 'Tabless Thursday'. Every week, employees have to only have one work related tab open at a time. Any ones open not relevant to workplace function must be shut down.

"This way you have to really make the value judgement and say do I want to finish what I'm doing or do I want to stop and do something else," he said.

Incorporating interesting concepts like Tabless Thursday into your business could be a useful way to manage employee time and work rate. However, to supplement policies like this, organisations can invest in efficiency software to streamline payroll services to ensure focus on tasks.