Do you often feel distracted and off-task at work? If so, you’re not alone. Distractions in the office are becoming the norm for Millennials and Gen Z. A recent study by Udemy found that 3 out of 4 of workers admit that they feel distracted while they’re on the job. This lost productivity time is costing employers millions of dollars.

The good news is that once we teach employees how to stay on task, things turn around. 70 percent of the survey respondents also said training could help them block out distractions and focus at work. It is possible to teach people soft skills that will improve their attitudes and attention spans at work. To help you get started, here are five things you can teach job-seekers to do to help themselves stay focused on the job.

1. How To Keep Themselves Organized

When your workspace isn’t organized, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and get distracted. Teach employees to keep every aspect of their work-life as organized as possible. This rule goes for everything from their email account to their desk space. Taking the time to dig up and old email or find a paper is just another opportunity to fall off task.

2. Create Daily and Hourly Work Plans

Breaking up long work days into shorter to-do lists is a great way to prevent frustration and distraction at work. Teach employees to create a big to-do list for the day, and then break up their lists into smaller, hourly work plans. Creating a game plan for the day will keep them focused and motivated to accomplish all of their goals.

3. Don’t Procrastinate

Employees should never put off small tasks simply because they don’t feel like doing them. Procrastination creates too much free time during the day, which is just more time to get distracted. Teach employees to complete everything on their list in the order that they wrote it down.

4. Take Short Breaks During The Day

Taking a break to help you stay on-task might seem counterintuitive, but breaks are a necessary part of the day. You can have breaks serve as small rewards throughout the day. For example, you can take a break every 2 hours, so long as you don’t procrastinate your work or look at your phone.

5. Keep Their Phones and Electronics Away

A survey from staffing firm OfficeTeam found the average office employee spends 56 minutes per day using their cell phone at work for non-work activity. Putting phones away is a difficult thing to teach and put into practice, but it’s necessary to keeping employees distraction-free. If employees must be on their phones during the day, it should only be during breaks. Phones are another thing they can use it as a reward for hard work.

Learn More About Our Soft Skill Curriculum

Our Bring Your ‘A’ Game curriculum is the perfect foundation to help you teach soft skills that keep employees engaged and on-task at work. Click here to learn more about our curriculum and how it can help job-seekers in your area succeed.