Experiment with immersion: The coworkers' responses

The employees of the pension company Velliv had to immerse into their work tasks for five hours of the week without a phone, e-mail, or colleagues to disturb.

Read about the experiment here.

See what the participants got out of their 5 hours of immersion:

• "I had an experience where I sat down with a task from start to finish, and it was actually finished. Whereas I could normally start a task and then I had to read a mail after 20 minutes. And then I checked the intranet. And then I could make the work task last the entirety of the work day - when I could finished it after 1 hour and 20 minutes."
  
  
• "I get to plan the big tasks. It was a relief to get it planned so I didn't have to worry about it".
  
  
• "You can fall in love all over again with your profession when you get to - or rather, let yourself - sit down and really get immersed with what you're best at. I have some pretty abstract tasks that I am fairly good at but I often forget to enjoy when it has to go fast".
  
  
• "As a takeaway, I will remember to book some time to focus on specific tasks, and I want to practise not letting myself get distracted and jump from one thing to another. Now there is allotted time and this is what I have to focus on. I have missed that".
  
  
• "I find it easy to get distracted by my phone, so I appreciate having 1.5 hours where I put it completely away. I put it in the bag so that I cannot look at it, and then I am much more focused on my task - and don't go back and forth". 
  
  
• "I think it has been nice to focus on one thing at a time. I can be extremely bad at multitasking and just give 10 seconds to one and 10 seconds to the other. So I can feel like I get lost in time and space when I immerse myself. It can be hard to set yourself up to it and get started but it is a great feeling along the way and when it is over".