Gossiping co-workers, ringing phones, and endless meetings — these are all things that can cause distractions while trying to get work done, but there's one thing that trumps them all.

Can you guess what it is? You get the prize if you said cell phones!

A recent study by OfficeTeam, a Robert Half company, finds that workers spend an average of 56 minutes per day on their cell phones for non-work activities. Younger workers ages 18 to 34 are the worst offenders, clocking in a whopping 70 minutes per day.

And the reason for all that time on the phone? Personal email leads the way, with 30 percent of workers indicating that's what they are most occupied by. Interestingly, when managers were asked what they thought workers were doing on their cell phones, 62 percent of them said checking social media pages like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Male workers are more likely to use their mobile devices for personal email tasks, while female workers use their phones more to browse social networks.

Perhaps one of the reasons why workers are spending so much time on their mobile devices is because some companies block social media and email sites. In fact, of those surveyed, 39 percent said their companies block social media sites, and 30 percent said their company blocks entertainment sites.

Not all companies put restrictions on their workers though. Forty-eight percent of those surveyed said their company doesn't block online content.

Cell phones aren't the only thing to blame for time wasted in the office. Workers also admitted to clocking 42 minutes a day on personal tasks. And once again younger workers ages 18 to 34 waste more time than other age groups on personal tasks. They average 6 more minutes per day.

Once you average all those minutes wasted, it comes out to over 8 hours per week. That's a lot of wasted time! In this podcast episode, we reveal what time-sucks we're guilty of — and looking at Hugh Jackman photos doesn't count!

That’s just one topic we hit in this week’s edition of Forever 39. Listen to the full episode below:

Share your thoughts on all of them below, on Twitter, on Facebook or at forever39@nj1015.com.

— Annette and Megan, Forever 39

Join us for next week’s podcast when we chat about dating in our 40s, the VIP experiences we yearn for, and sibling relationships.

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