We admit: our last two blogs have been pretty negative. But knowing that nearly 70% of American workers are tuned out at work, we felt it was important to help employers and managers understand why employees are disengaged and how employee disengagement hurts your business.

Now that we’ve identified the problem, it’s time to turn to solutions. We don’t believe employee disengagement has to be the new norm, so here’s how we can all be part of the solution.

Employee disengagement hurts your organization. From team morale to the bottom line there are emotional and financial costs to having a disengaged workforce.

Last week, we gave you five ways employee disengagement is hurting your organization. That’s the first step to attacking your problem - understanding why it is a problem for you. The next step is to understand why these employees are feeling unmotivated at work. Until you know that you can’t create an effective strategy for re-engaging those employees.

While each team is unique, the fact that so many people (70%) are anywhere from less than enthused about their jobs to outright seeking to sabotage their place of employment, means there are some key trends that can help you diagnose and treat the problem.

Take a look - do you think any of these issues are living beneath the surface at your organization?

Read the five common reasons employees are disengaged at work.

We’ve all heard the staggering statistic: according to Gallup, only 33 percent of all American workers feel engaged at their jobs. That means 67 percent - nearly 7-in-10 - workers in America are somewhat disengaged at work, if not disengaged entirely.

Look around yourself, at your job, or at the next business you walk into. Does your team have engagement issues? What about the team at your doctor’s office or your mechanic shop - where quality work greatly influences your life!

Chances are - your team, and organizations that you care about and need in your life, have an employee engagement problem.

Here are five reasons your employees might be disengaged and why it's hurting your business.

Earlier this month, we talked about setting SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. This is a tried-and-true strategy for setting goals that you can achieve and a plan to make them happen.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes setting goals simply isn’t enough for me. What happens when you set SMART goals and find yourself getting frustrated or falling short?

Knowing what you want is one part of the equation towards accomplishing your goals. And systems can be the missing link between goals that remain unattained and those that are achieved or even exceeded.

Read how to implement systems that make achieving your goals painless.

Several years ago, I started doing something a bit unusual: setting my “New Year Resolutions” in September. My birthday is in September, so it feels natural to start *my* new year this month. And September feels like a fresh start for many ways: a transition out of summer, when schedules and routines were relaxed for fun in the sun; back to school (or re-focusing at work); cooler nights and fresh autumn mornings.

In fact, I think you should be setting goals in September regardless of if you set them at the start of the year. This is a great time to reassess your progress for the year and realign how you’re spending your time to ensure you accomplish what is necessary by calendar year’s end. This is especially true at work, where you likely have year-end goals for yourself and your team (and maybe even bonuses contingent on achieving them).

But simply moving your goal-setting to September won’t guarantee you set good goals and achieve them. That’s why I rely on SMART goals - goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely - to help me make a plan for success. Here’s an example.

For most of us, Labor Day is the summer finale, knowing that once the holiday has come and gone, fall is upon us and it’s once again time to focus on school and work.

Growing up, we wouldn’t miss the first high school football game of the season on the Friday night of Labor Day weekend. It was also our last chance to get a new outfit for school, new binders or a new lunch bag. Finally, we enjoyed a quiet Monday at home before the big yellow school bus would arrive the next morning like clockwork.

But did you know there’s a greater significance to Labor Day beyond one last chance to savor summer?

Despite growing evidence and plenty of discussion around how multitasking is not just ineffective but actually bad for your brain, we can’t seem to banish multitasking from our workday. Notifications from multiple devices cascade through our ears, pulling us away from the task we’re trying to focus on. Open tabs in our browsers seem to multiply like rabbits. Suddenly, it seems like the only way we can accomplish anything is to do multiple things at once.

But is multitasking really the problem? As I prepared to write this article, I was pulled away by a phone call, multiple text messages, checking to make sure I responded to an email, and of course a pit stop on Facebook. Psychologists have dubbed this incessant barrage of tasks, necessary or otherwise, that draw us away from what we’re currently doing task switching.

The success of Marie Kondo’s book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up points to the overwhelm most people feel as a result of a life cluttered with possessions and commitments. But while there are many resources that help us simplify our homes and our personal lives, the conversation rarely goes beyond tossing out those old pairs of socks or the papers you’ve been holding onto since college.

The weight many people feel from all their excess possessions is similar to the overwhelm most people feel at work, too. Without quite realizing how it got this bad, our days are bursting at the seams with emails, meetings, reports, and interruptions, leaving us tired at the end of the day and wondering what we actually accomplished.

Just like you can simplify your home, you can overcome the clutter of your workday by applying the “KonMari” method.

If you’ve encountered languages other than the one you grew up with, you’ve likely discovered a word that captures an idea that doesn’t quite translate directly into your own language.

I like it when that happens. It introduces me to a new way of thinking, to a concept I hadn’t considered in the same way.

The ancient Greek language has two different words for time. Chronos refers to the kind of time we measure by the ticking clock. It’s the time we use as we try to meet deadlines, make it to appointments, or go to bed at a decent hour. We cite it in numbers: 8:45 a.m., 4:15 p.m.

Kairos, on the other hand, has a spiritual implication, a sense of significance. It represents time “in the moment,” giving everything into that moment and receiving everything it has to offer. On Kairos time, you are truly present, not rushing toward the next thing.

Which type of time energizes you? Which drains you? And most importantly, which is your default setting?

Ding! A new email. Ding! An urgent text message. And don’t get me started on the numerous project management software options out there - while they all have good intentions, and can be used to make our work lives much easier, often they become another layer of bureaucracy and a place where good ideas go to die.

And then the phone rings, and you’re 10 minutes late for your next meeting… lather, rinse, repeat.

Research shows that knowledge workers are interrupted a staggering 20 times an hour. That’s why we end up spending almost two-thirds of our day just managing our work, not actually doing it.

Does this describe you? Do you leave work feeling like you accomplished far less than you should in 8, 9, 10 or more hours? It it impossible to even gain a moment’s peace in your office?

If so, you’re not alone. But you’re also not doomed to spend your remaining years at work trying to survive the chaos. Here are three steps to getting your freedom to focus back.