5 Chat Types That Could Be Dinging Your Work Productivity

More than 42 percent of business workers today use a chat application to communicate at work. Chat is fast, it’s easy, and it makes communicating at work just a little more fun. But it can also be distracting. One study showed that we experience reduced cognitive performance when we leave an unfinished task to start a new one — like responding to a chat message. The reason is that our brain continues to focus on our first task even though we’ve moved on to something new. That’s a lot of refocusing for one day!

The first step to successful concentration is to recognize the traits of a potential distractor so you can pivot your way back to productivity. Read along for a list of five chat personalities to watch out for at work.

The Eager Beaver: Did you see my email? This person is the ultra-communicator — and they’re good at it. They’ll send you an email and wait a full five minutes before pinging you to make sure you received it. Hey, they have a job to do too! While they mean well, they are unknowingly cutting into your work productivity.

The GIF giver: Did you know it was possible to communicate in straight gifs? This person did. This chat type has a unique ability to brighten your day with the cutest cat images and somehow overwhelm you all at the same time. Emojis, animations, memes — the interruption sky is the limit. Our advice? We all need a good cat gif in our life, but moderation is key.

The Megaphone Lover: A direct message just doesn’t do it for this chat type. They’ve missed the “Don’t Reply All” memo altogether and have taken it one step further in the chat world. Suddenly, you’ve found yourself in chat channel with ten other people and not a single conversation that pertains to you.

The Persistent Pinger: Can’t stop, won’t stop. This chat type is a little Send happy. A full thought can manifest itself as seven different chat messages meaning seven different lines of text to interrupt your day. Signed on to an immediate ping at 9:00 PM on a Friday? They’re probably on the other end of that.

The File Fisher: Can you resend that? This person works fast and requests even faster. They tend to ask for things you’ve already answered because it’s easier to go straight to the source. While it’s efficient for them, they’re stealing precious time away from your work day.

The truth is, all of these chat types have a place in our work day. They each help us get our jobs done in one way or another. The secret is recognizing the triggers that challenge your focus so you can pivot your way back to productivity.

Have a favorite chat personality type that you run into at work? Let us know in the comments!