Avoid These Social Media Apps to Stay Constructive At Work At present, social media apps are considered as the biggest reason for creating distractions at the workplace.
By Nidhi Singh
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Staying focused is an important aspect of meeting our goals on time. But it's hard to stay focused in our professional lives when we have many distractions around us that divert our attention from the ultimate goal. With so many social media apps available at our fingertips, staying constructive is becoming the biggest workplace challenge.
According to a CareerBuilder survey conducted last year, the majority of workers with smartphones do not have their work emails on their smartphones. Of those who access their smartphone during work for non-work use, spend their time on non-work related sites during work.
Rosemary Haefner, Chief Human Resources Officer, CareerBuilder highlighted in the survey that while we need to be connected to devices for work, we're also a click away from alluring distractions from our personal lives like social media and various other apps.
She further added that the connectivity conundrum isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it needs to be managed.
Entrepreneur India lists out few apps to stay constructive at the workplace:
It's very hard to imagine life without social media. At present, social media apps are considered as the biggest reason for creating distractions at the workplace.
Brijraj Vaghani, Founder and CEO, Ridlr feels outside of Twitter (which if used well can provide a lot of insights and updates), most social media tools can end up being a distraction.
"Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc. are apps that can lead one down a rabbit hole of time wasting videos, pictures, and articles. Having said that, if one has discipline, then they can provide a short break in an otherwise hectic workday," he said.
Saran Chatterjee, CEO Housejoy believes from a workplace productivity standpoint, all the social media and video content apps are a distraction.
Instagram can be a useful tool for entrepreneurs who want to market their business online but according to Harikrishnan Pillai, Co-founder of TheSmallBigIdea the app also has the potential to waste your precious time at the workplace.
"The content of Instagram is addictive beyond imagination. And if it's not, the creators ensure that the filters do the rest," he said.
For Sujayath Ali, Co-Founder and CEO, Voonik.com, the smartphone is definitely a distraction.
"Frequent messages and phone calls require context switching and take away focus. At the same time, we can also use the phone to minimise distraction by restricting non-work browsing such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and not open them on your laptop," he stressed.
Subodh Kumar, CEO, Liv.ai completely avoids using social sites like Facebook during weekdays.
"It's very important to give your undivided attention to create something of long-lasting value. I do check Twitter early in the morning when I wake up but try to avoid it at work. To stay focused I check my WhatsApp messages only in between breaks," he said.
