hen he was nine years old, my godson Adam developed a brief but freakishly intense obsession with Elvis Presley. He took to singing Jailhouse Rock at the top of his voice with all the low crooning and pelvis-jiggling of the King himself.

"Time management" is not a solution - it's actually part of the problem. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

Imagine you're typing an email, and then a text message alert sounds from your cell phone. You look down to read the message and maybe even reply. A few seconds later, you return to your email. Only now, you've lost your train of thought, and you have to read through what you've already written to resume your message.

Column Reading Time: 4 min Ever hear a recommendation from a manager that you need to "be more of a strategic thinker"? The feedback might initially seem surprising or even insulting if you feel like you already have been working hard to do your job well.

The stats on how many ads, images, videos, emails, texts and more that the typical American encounters daily are staggering. For leaders, this clamor of all these distractions has a real cost. Precious time devoted to deep thinking is being eroded. Finding any level of focus takes more energy and it is hard to say no to constant disruptions.

Conversations about career aspirations are great but as a leader, you may be thinking about how to go from talking to planning. This is a great time to step into a "leader as coach" mindset. From your short-term, long-term, and career conversations with your team, you have a strong sense of their passions, goals and skills.