To achieve anything worthwhile sustained focused is essential. Technology is causing many people to achieve a lot less.

US workers are bombarded with email, computer messages, cellphone calls, voice mails and the like, research showed.

“Technology has sped everything up and, by speeding everything up, it’s slowed everything down, paradoxically,” said John Challenger, chief executive of Chicago-based outplacement consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Workers typically get 46 emails a day, nearly half of them unsolicited.

Twelve years ago 82 per cent said they accomplished at least half their daily planned work but that number fell to 50 per cent last year.