I realize that this statement sounds backwards, but the fact is, email overload and multitasking do make you less productive at your job. Intel, the computer chip maker, estimates that email overload can cost large companies as much as $1 billion a year in lost productivity.

How is this possible? Aren't these supposed to be tools that make you more productive? It has more to do with interruptions to your thought processes. Your brain doesn't respond well to interruptions. These interruptions erode an area in your brain called effortful control. This in turn affects your ability to regulate your voluntary attention. Voluntary attention is the ability to concentrate on a chosen task. 

To make matters worse, this erosion of effortful control causes your brain to seek more interruptions. The more you check your email, the more you need to check your email. If you have an iPhone or Blackberry, you should be all too familiar with this problem.

According to Gayle Porter, a professor of management at Rutgers University, "Technology is an addiction". She has studied e-compulsion and has concluded that if one cannot turn off their Blackberry when they need to focus on the job at hand, then there is a problem. Addiction to electronic devices is not all that different to addictions to cigarettes, coffee or drugs.

Sure people can walk and chew gum. They can juggle four different tasks at one time, but they can't do two thinking tasks simultaneously. I am sure you have carried on a phone conversation while reading an email. Trying to do both of these tasks at the same time causes the brain to switch back and forth between these tasks. A University of Michigan study found that productivity dropped as much as 40% when subjects attempted to two or more things at once.

It has been noted that executives who have to constantly deal with electronic interruptions have a hard time focusing even when they are away from these interruptions. Their brains are so scrambled they find it difficult to stay on message during face to face meetings, sales presentations or investor pitches. A cottage industry has emerged to help executives overcome these issues.

In reality, the brain will try to compensate by moving some tasks from the hippocampus, the area that handles the more demanding cognitive tasks, to the striatum, which handles the rote tasks. In other words some important cognitive tasks might be relocated to the gum chewing part of your brain when you are multitasking. This explains why we make those typos in important messages or send emails to the wrong persons.

In her book, Rapt, Winifred Gallagher wrote that humans are the sum of what they pay attention to. Obviously we should pay attention to only those things that are most meaningful, but instead we focus on what captures our attention. Therein lays the problem, particularly if we are constantly bombarded with electronic messages and e-interruptions.

This issue has become so pervasive that Google, Microsoft, IBM and Intel have begun collaborating on developing best practices and sharing new approaches to this problem. It is a matter of self preservation for these companies. Computer engineers have been among the most affected by these e-interruptions.

A Harvard Business School study by Leslie Perlow determined that the computer engineers at one software company were so interrupted by electronic messages that the only way they could get their work done was to do their work at night and on weekends. In an experiment to alleviate this problem, all messages and phone calls were banned at certain periods during the day and their productivity increased to the point that they no longer needed nights and weekends to complete their projects.

Some managers and executives have found that limiting the number of times they check their email and phone messages is the key to productivity. One senior financial advisor at Merrill Lynch found that checking messages four times a day was the answer. Another manager at Lockeed Martin cut his message checking to twice a day.

Bottom line: Figure out what works for you and wean yourself from these e-interruptions. Constantly checking your email or phone messages will make you less productive. If you want to get the most out of your day, focus on your job and not your inbox.

Do you suffer from this affliction? Have you come up with a solution? Tell us about how you have overcome e-interruptions in the workplace.

 My web community, www.boomeropinion.com is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership.

Just as I was about to write this blog, I remembered that I needed to check my Facebook news feed for new posts from friends and family. I also needed to send a text message to one of my colleagues about an upcoming project and get his feedback. I absolutely had to check my Outlook calendar for any appointments I might have scheduled for today. Oh, and I was going to finish reading that book about Mark Zuckerberg and Social Networking on my iPad. My life has been taken over by technology it seems.

It doesn't seem that long ago when I was bored to death and I would have to find things to do to fill my time. Back in those days, I had 3 network television channels on my TV and the only way I could keep up with my friends and family was by calling them or visiting them. If there was a project, personal or business related, I was able to devote my full attention to it until it was completed. Distractions were few and far between. Today it seems we are all overburdened with technology and communications devices that seem like technology leashes. They pull on us this way or that way constantly.  

Will we ever be able to take control of our lives again, or is it futile to even try? Younger generations seem perfectly happy to stay connected to that leash 24/7. Am I just too old to smell the cappuccino? Am I looking backward and thinking that it would be better to return to the past? Maybe, I should just fully embrace these technologies and take advantage of what they have to offer. After all, I have never had this kind of instant access to my family, my business associates or my world. It's a good thing, right? I think it is a good thing as long as you don't let it completely dominate your life.

If we let technology rule our daily lives, then we aren't really taking enough time out of each day for ourselves or for the ones we really care about. I guess I just need to find the right balance. That is easy to say, but hard to do, right? It is a lifestyle decision. Instead of letting technology run our lives, we need to step back and set some priorities. If you are trying to build the next Fortune 500 company, your time is not your own. You business life and personal life are the same. For you, there is no choice. But, for the rest of us...

Recently I wrote a blog about Mark Zuckerberg's view of social media and why he thought everyone on Facebook should be willing to share the most intimate details of their personal and business lives daily on his social network. One commenter to my blog responded that since Mark could really distinguish between his personal and professional lives, that was easy for him to say and to do. For the rest of us, we probably want to maintain some separation between those two areas of our lives.

So how can we find that balance? When and how can we free ourselves of our technology leashes? First step is to set priorities. Some people would feel completely lost if they had to put away their iPhones, Blackberries or notebook computers. I am sure age impacts those decisions. If you are old enough to have lived without all these gadgets and appliances, it is probably easier to find the proper settings and times to put them away.   

One suggestion for simplifying one's life is to start by stopping. Each day you set your agenda and try to optimize every minute of the day. What if you chose not to set any agenda? What if you just let go and didn't try to be totally productive every minute of the day. You could do whatever you felt like that morning or escape for the entire day. You could go for a walk or take a hike. You could pull out that novel that you have been meaning to read, but just couldn't find the time for.

You could take your kids or your significant other on a bike ride. You could go to the beach or the lake and just take in the natural beauty of the area. If your time is really limited, you could just go outside and watch the clouds roll by. Just remember to unplug. Leave your iPhone or Blackberry in the house or the glove box. If you have to take it with you, at least turn it off.

If you are a list person, then put aside an hour or more each day to do nothing. Write it down on your list. Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, suggests taking time for yourself on a regular basis to sharpen the saw. Translation: do something to improve your mind or your spiritual being. The metaphor is all about being able to perform at your best. Take time to sharpen the saw because with a dull saw you won't cut much wood or be very productive.

If every day of your life is so busy that you can't get everything done on your list, then re-examine your list. Typically, there are a number of things on your to-do list that might seem urgent, but aren't really that important to your job or personal life. Re-evaluate your activities in order to optimize the ones that really are important to your mission. Remove the ones that aren't really fundamentally necessary in achieving your daily goals and objectives. Your list just might become manageable.  

When it comes to your cell and your computer, you can simplify and declutter those devices. I used to receive 50-100 emails per day. A lot of them I thought I needed for work. You know the ones...Briefings on technology, leadership, management, etc. I have unsubscribed to most of them. If I need to learn the latest on any topic, I just Google it and generally learn more than I ever wanted to know in a short time.

If you have joined too many groups on linkedin and receive daily or weekly email updates, then unjoin them. Getting rid of email clutter will make your life easier to manage. Do you have too many friends on Facebook? You can hide them from view and then the only news feeds you see will be about those people that you actually care about. Don't get me started on Twitter. Unless you have a business connection that requires you posting tweets or reading other's tweets...just say no. How important can information that consists of 170 characters or less really be? Check your news feeds no more than twice a day.

And consider turning off your television set occasionally. I realize that is a lot to ask. A great many people turn on their TVs when they get up in the morning and turn them off when they go to bed. Even if they aren't actually watching, it is like an extra voice in the house to keep them company. Bottom line: Living your life vicariously through your favorite television actors or personalities is okay as long as you don't spend the bulk of your free time doing it. I realize that some of you schedule your lives around our favorite TV shows. If you are that addicted, get a DVR and do something meaningful with at least a portion of your spare time.

One final note. Recent studies have indicated that technology appliances are having an adverse effects on the attention spans of humans across the world. Our attention spans are getting shorter and we are having a more difficult time focusing on anything for extended periods of time. It is no wonder that this is happening given the amount of information we are exposed to each day and the methods we are using to communicate with each other over cell phones, instant messaging platforms, email and Twitter.

The only way to extend your ability to focus and extend your attention span is by practicing. Stop scanning the news or trade sites and start reading full articles. Read entire books. Find projects that require your full attention for extended periods of time and engage. If you want your mind back, you will have to exercise it the same as you would exercise your body to gain muscle tone.

If you want to take your life back, you can do this. It isn't really that tough. I encourage you to tell us about your ideas on unleashing yourself from technology. Inquiring minds want to know.

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion.

A few weeks back I wrote a blog about Ford's new internet connectivity suite...Sync. I lambasted Ford for promoting their vehicle's connectivity to social media. That's a crazy idea I said. I could just see folks trying to Tweet while driving. In reality, Ford is connecting you to your phone and the web applications you use in a much safer and better way than any other manufacturer. After learning more about this technology, I stand corrected. I spoke to soon when I criticized their system.

Ford has taken the high road and is using Microsoft's Windows CE, Bluetooth and your smartphone to make driving safer. According to a recent article in Fast Company magazine by Paul Hochman, titled How Ford's Sync Technology Will Turn It Into America's Most Surprising Consumer Electronics Company, "Ford is transforming the car into a powerful smartphone, one that lets you carry your digital world along with you and then customize it."

The article went on to state, "By freeing you from the tyrannies (and dangers) of messing with that little phone while you drive and letting you command your technology, through the car, using only your voice; by establishing the car itself as your connection to the cloud; and by giving mobile developers a way to create an ever-expanding portfolio of services designed for -- and around -- your vehicle."

Sync uses only voice based commands. Want to make a call. Just hit the media button on your steering wheel and tell your Ford what you want it to do. If you say, "Call Bob at home", Sync will pull up Bob's home number from your smart phone, dial it, and you can talk to him without holding your phone. If you can't hear Bob clearly just turn up the volume like you would on your radio from the steering wheel. The system uses artificial intelligence and learns your voice commands.

The Nuance software has more than 10,000 commands associated with driving that allows you to speak in a normal voice to your car. You don't have to go through numerous layers of menus to get advice, play music or get directions. For example, instead of saying "music, playlists, Oscar Peterson", you can just say, "I would like to hear some jazz". And up comes every piece of jazz music from your car or iPod playlists.

Ford's Service Delivery Network can connect your car wirelessly to the cloud. SyncMyRide is a Web based service that lets you load a destination into your home computer and pull it up on your car's navigation system. You won't have to print out directions and hold the map while you drive. Your nav system will give you verbal turn by turn directions that will take you to your destination. Pretty neat, huh?

Want to grab a bite. Just tell your car, "I'm hungry" and out comes spoken restaurant advice matched up with the car's navigation system. If you have satellite radio, you can say, "Find talk radio to pull preferences from that media. You want to post something on Twitter, just speak your tweets into the invisible microphone and your tweets will appear on your Twitter page.

Sync's MyFord Touch interface can be customized to your specific requirements. There are two LCD panels on either side of the speedometer. Drivers can change the layout quite easily. If you aren't concerned about the interior climate, but you are lost, you can get rid of the climate control graphic and replace it with the navigation display. If you don't need the nav screen anymore, you can replace it with the phone controls or radio display. You can even watch video on the center console...if your Ford is in park.

Since, Sync is an open platform, all types of applications will be developed for it. Services such as traffic, directions, business searches, news, sports and weather are all great candidates for Sync. Ford has six datacenters around the country that can beam in Sync applications. According to Ford, Pandora and OpenBeak created Sync-specific software for the platform in about 10 days.

To Ford's credit they didn't just put this system on the high end models. When they rolled out the first Fords with Sync, it was on the 2008 Ford Focus. The President of Ford pointed out that there is a healthy small car market and he wanted Ford to become a leader in that market. He knows that the Japanese won't be far behind.

Don't expect the other car makers to just stand idly by. Mercedes, Kia, Audi and many others are burning the midnight oil trying to catch up. First mover status doesn't guarantee success. Just ask all those MP3 player manufacturers who came out with their MP3 players before Apple introduced the iPod.

Ford is selling twice as many cars with Sync than those without Sync. Are you ready for your very own talking car? Sounds kind of like Knight Rider, but hopefully your Ford won't drive off by itself.  Does this technology appeal to you? Let us hear what you think about Ford's internet play.

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion.