So there you are, sitting in your cubicle, wondering why you can't get any work done.

Is it concern about the declining dollar?

Worry about the high cost of energy?

The fact that you have been playing solitaire on your computer since you got to the office?

Actually, researchers have gotten to the root of the reason American businesses lose an estimated $650 billion a year due to workplace distractions: It's your co-workers. Yes, it's those people around you stopping by your desk, asking you questions, hitting you up for contributions for Mavis in accounting who's retiring after approximately 90 years with the company (most of the last few years nitpicking your expense account, it would seem), holding birthday celebrations in the cafeteria, asking you to perform CPR on the guy in the next desk. And that's just the non-work related stuff.

Then there are e-mails (and we are only talking about the non-obscene ones here) meetings, pre-meetings, post-meetings, business lunches, client dinners, power breakfasts and, of course, the bane of all productivity, customers.

No really. According to a story in BusinessWeek magazine on workplace disruption, the accounting director for a state agency in Minnesota cited the fact that she had to deal with some two-dozen walk-in customers a day as a major distraction in her work schedule. These distractions would be the taxpayers of Minnesota. Who pay her. (If that is what she thinks of her customers, you can imagine how she looks at her employees.)

In the BusinessWeek story, Chuck Martin, president of NFI Research, a data analysis firm that tracks business, management, and informational technology trends, is quoted as saying work-related distractions like e-mail, company crises, and interruptions by co-workers are so common that 46 percent of business leaders arrive at work early in search of solitude.

But do they get it? No they do not. Employees just show up sooner, bugging them with more questions about work stuff. Martin says. "They're basically extending the hours of the day."

BusinessWeek says companies need to start cracking down on distractions and offers some suggestions from prominent management consultants. For example, for workers who constantly blunder into their colleagues' cubicles, consultants recommend a "stop" sign or a ribbon across the door, which would make the average cubicle look much more like a crime scene than it already does. The consultant points out that not having a door is a major problem with cubicles. (Possible solution: a door.)

Another recommendation is that employees only answer e-mails at designated times. This is a wonderful idea that should really enhance productivity until the boss demands to know why you haven't responded to his latest message flagged as "Urgent!"

Another consultant says the problem at many companies is overstaffing. Employees don't have enough to do so they wander around, bugging their co-workers. Guess what the management solution to that problem is.

My recommendation for avoiding that particular issue? Get back to work. And, by the way, the seven of diamonds goes over there.

TOM REILLY is a Sun Chronicle news editor. He can be reached at 508-236-0332 or at treilly@thesunchronicle.com, but only during work hours.