“Circumstances may cause interruptions and delays, but never lose sight of your goal.” – Mario Andretti***
I remember working in my office on a project. Each day was usually filled with meetings, updates and conference calls. I could usually get my end of day email, voicemail time in without a problem, that was the time I blocked off in my schedule to read and respond to emails, listen and respond to voicemails, check my schedule for the next morning to prepare for whatever and wherever I had to be first on the a.m. agenda. It was usually uninterrupted because the office building was a ghost town after 4:30 p.m. I worked until 5:30 or 6 p.m. I absolutely adored the quiet time! On this particular day, however, like so many days, I was trying hard to take advantage of some midday work time that I had open on my calendar, intended for just what I was doing, working.
Because I was on the go a lot, people were often surprised to see me actually sitting in my office. The glass doors made it easy to see when someone was inside, even if the blinds were closed because they could see the lights on in the office. If the door was open, heads would pop in, “Hey!” If the door was closed and the blinds closed, there would be a knock on the door. It would be too rude not to answer, so naturally I would have shout, “Come in!” Therein lied the invitation to interrupt my worker bee mode. Sometimes it was my boss. Sometimes it was one of my neighbors. Sometimes it was an employee. Whoever it was, they wanted or needed to talk, be it personal or work related. My job was to provide a service, provide coaching or just be a friend with a listening ear. In every case, I had to give them my full attention and attend to the issue at hand.
Sometimes the conversations had nothing to do with anything and would go far too long; while other times the conversations were very productive and helped us avoid a game of phone tag or days of emailing back and forth trying to understand one another’s perspective on work that needed to get done yesterday. Either way, I struggled…for years trying to figure out how to get work done and avoid the interruptions, distractions, and the disruptions. My boss and I used to brainstorm ways that I could avoid all three to get good solid work time in. She knew how much it bothered me. She even offered once to have some of my staff report directly to her so I could focus more on the project and program work that I needed to get done. I turned her down, by the way, but it was the thought that counted. I didn’t think that was a laudable, plausible option to agree to.
Yes We’re Talking Distractions Again
We’ve talked about some of this before in such past posts as “The Art of Getting Things Done,” “Distractions, Stress & The Balancing Act,” “Distractions: Working Smarter Not Harder” and “Time: Trap or Treasure?” I have made no secret of my desire to conquer the time eating demons that make my productive time null and void. I believe the first HR team of which I was a part, spoiled me. When the office door was closed, everyone knew it meant DO NOT DISTURB. I could be in my office for hours, if necessary and no one would knock on the door unless I told them before I went in, that they could. Unbelievable but true (LOL)!
Recently, I was giving thought, once again to how I could get the people and circumstances around me to line up and enable me to work uninterrupted for lengthy periods of time and satisfy my quest for greater productivity and excellence. I had the most amazingly odd thought. Instead of focusing on how to avoid the interruptions, what if I actually learned how to work through or in spite of the interruptions, distractions and disruptions?
Defining Disturbances
While some might dispute my definitions slightly, here’s how I am defining interruptions, distractions, disruptions. I have determined there are three enemies to my productivity:
Distractions – I would define a distraction as something that creates competition for our attention to a task or process like an annoying sound, or your son teasing the dog but it doesn’t fully avert our focus.
Disruptions – are things that breaks the regular flow or sequence of an activity, event or process by causing a disturbance or problem, like the dog got tired of the teasing and actually bites the boy and now the child is bleeding and you have to stop what you are doing to remove the dog from the scene and rescue the child.
Interruptions – An interruption interjects a pause or variation in the process or flow of an activity or program and may or may not be short term. An example would be a TV program being interrupted by a special news announcement; it might be five minutes or two hours.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found after careful observation that the typical office worker is interrupted or switches tasks, on average, every three minutes and five seconds. And it can take 23 minutes and 15 seconds just to get back to where they left off. That doesn’t include the amount of time that the interruption lasted. According to Gloria Mark, who conducted the study, distractions also lead to higher stress, bad moods and lower productivity.
So given my bright idea to stop fighting the inevitable and approach it by working with it, here are suggestions I came up with to get the ball rolling:
Six Ideas to Flow Effectively with Distractions, Disruptions and Interruptions:
- Write out your schedule and share it with others. This will let others know the best times to approach or visit. Then when they pop in or over, you are prepared and not overwhelmed or frustrated.
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Plan out of the office productive time. If it helps to go for a drive to another office location, a safe, quiet serene spot where no one can get to you, like the park up the street, by the lake etc. then schedule an hour or two to go there and crank out that report or that article you have to write.
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Wear earbuds or headphones. If there are distracting sounds, noises and conversations that interfere in what you are trying to do, turn on calm music that will not get you hyped but can help you remain focused and drown them out with your headphones/earbuds.
- Schedule your work time more creatively. If people are most likely to interrupt in the late afternoon, plan your greatest times of focused work in the morning or early afternoon times.
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Schedule times for fun distractions. If social media is a distraction or is something you really enjoy, schedule some social media time… small increments of time of course… take a social media break and loosen up. Do not get caught up in it and go over your time frame!
- To prevent productivity paralysis, when interrupted, write down the task you were working on when you were interrupted. Post it in your work area so you can remember what you need to go back to when you can focus again. I am notorious for getting distracted from one task, then when I return to my office, I begin to work on something completely different because I start going through a pile of mail or work sitting on my desk. Eventually I realize that’s not what I was supposed to be doing but that’s usually after I have gotten engrossed in it.
Closing Thoughts
Consider this to be a start to a winning list we can all benefit from given the fact that we are all faced with the ongoing challenge of remaining focused and maintaining productivity. Why don’t you send me some of your own ideas. I’d love to add more tools to my productivity belt. Whether working from home or working in the office, we can do better… and without the guild and stress!
Send me your thoughts!