Remote work can be summed up with a simple pro-con formula: gain productivity, lose collaboration.

Of course, that’s an oversimplification, and not applicable to all people and situations. Technology and good processes, for example, can help overcome the challenges of collaborating remotely. But the productivity gains of working from home or in another, non-office location? They’re real.

In fact, for all the focus on a loss of collaboration outside the office (a frequent objection to remote working) there’s another loss inside the office that often goes unremarked—the distraction tax.

23 Minutes Down the Drain

Gloria Mark, a professor in the department of informatics at UC Irvine, studies how our use of technology affects attention. She conducted a study of tech workers, timing them to the second throughout a few days at work to see how they behaved. In her research, Mark has found that knowledge workers change tasks, on average, every three minutes.

To that scattershot approach, add this unfortunate fact: Mark’s research revealed that it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds, on average, to recover from an interruption. That’s a whole lot of wasted time!

Knowledge Worker, Focus Thyself

Before you pack up your desk and head home for some uninterrupted working bliss, hold on.

One of the lessons from Mark’s research is that not all distractions come from without. About 44 percent of our task-switching at work, she says, is self-inflicted. That means we’re interrupting ourselves almost half the time.

Stop the Ride, I Want to Get Off

Working remotely won’t stop your co-workers from interrupting you by chat, email, or phone. And it certainly won’t stop you from switching tabs to look at baseball scores, cat videos, or even just another work project. But, in light of the carnival of distraction Mark’s research documented, any decrease in so-called “multitasking” would seem to be sorely needed.

Other academics, such as Nicholas Bloom, have collected data suggesting working from home can boost productivity. And a recent survey showed that about three-quarters of U.S. workers split from the office when they want to get things done.

So, why not give working from home a try? Pick a day and see how it goes. If you find yourself getting more done than you expected, maybe you can add productivity to the many benefits of remote work.

Let us know how it goes! Share your experience of going remote on Facebook, Google+, or Twitter.

(Photo: Flickr user Steve Lyon via Creative Commons)