Part Two: Managing Interruptions in the 80%

Focus Newsletter, July 2007

 

 

As I said in Part One of this series, it can be like getting pecked to death by a chicken. The never-ending question from your colleagues or your staff… “Gotta minute?”… “Gotta minute?”… “Gotta minute?” It can break your concentration and break down your productivity.


If you missed it, Part One was about creating uninterrupted time for yourself during your work day. I shared some tips for how to set boundaries and how to be more proactive with managing your time.


Click here to read Part I: http://www.productiveday.com/newsletter/july07.html


I also introduced the concept of getting paid to be interrupted about 80% of the time because if you are in leadership of any kind, you are there to lead, guide and mentor throughout your day, but you must guard the other 20% with your life. This time is yours and the more you can get for yourself, the better. Make that 20% (or more) your best and most focused quality time for getting your things done.


Part Two of this series is about managing the interruptions you will get during the 80% of the time you are available to others. Even though you are technically ‘available,’ it’s best to minimize interruptions as much as possible by re-training others as to what you want and need. Plus, this may help others increase their focused time by staying put at their desks as well. You will continue to get interrupted if you continue to let it happen, which tells people that it’s ok to interrupt you. Remember, you get what you tolerate. However, you can change this pattern. Here are 5 ways to put change into effect…



  1. VISITORS and your GUEST CHAIRS

Avoid letting visitors plant themselves in your guest chairs for an indeterminable amount of time unless you can consistently limit or control the amount of time your visitor is there. If not, put things on your guest chairs, remove the chairs or stand while you are talking.



  1. WALK AND TALK

This is one of my favorites. I used this tactic in my prior career in the corporate world. When a “long talker” entered my office and I needed to cut to the chase, I would immediately get up from my chair and say, “let’s walk and talk” and walk the person right of my office and down the hall so that I could get more coffee or water. I engaged in the necessary dialog or answered questions and then I wrapped it up in the hallway or better yet, walked them back to their office if it was very near. Upon wrapping up the conversation, I would return to my office… alone… and get back to what I was doing prior to being interrupted.



  1. PULL, not PUSH

If you have staff or colleagues with whom you work regularly on projects, start using a “pull” approach to communicating with them instead of letting them “push,” which can turn into interruptions. You can do this in several ways. One way is to set up group meetings (at any interval) with a clear agenda and a person in charge who keeps the group on task and on target for discussions. People can save questions and dialog for this forum rather than interrupting others all week long.


Another way to get together with others is to schedule meetings with people 1:1. These can be every week for an informal information exchange, Q & A, updates on a project or a status report on a number of ongoing topics. These are very different from group meetings and each 1:1 participant, including you, should start to plan what to discuss during these meetings. Try to keep the 1:1 meetings brief and to the point, preferably a ½ hour or much less.


When interruptions continue to occur from people you meet with weekly, then you have the opportunity to decide whether the interruption truly must be dealt with on the spot or whether it can wait until the weekly meeting, thereby letting you get back to the task at hand. This is part of the training your staff or colleagues may need as you introduce this approach. Everyone involved will learn to make judgment calls about what can wait and what cannot and hopefully will interrupt you less.



  1. THE EVER-RINGING PHONE

The phone is also something that likely breaks everyone’s concentration all day long and for the most part, you need to pick it up. However, even though you are available to others during the 80%, you can choose not to answer the phone if you are trying to concentrate on something specific and want to minimize the interruptions. Can you have your calls intercepted? Can someone cover the phones for you for a short while? If no one is available to help, can you send calls to voice mail for a period of time and block time later in the day to return calls? If so, be sure to let others know when you are returning calls so that they know when to expect to hear back from you.



  1. THE EMAIL THAT NEVER STOPS

Email is something that folks react to all day long, looking at each and every one of them as soon as they hit the Inbox.

First of all, you have the option to turn OFF those email alerts! They are extremely distracting and they break concentration for almost everyone.


(Click here to see the steps for turning off Outlook 2003 email alerts: http://www.productiveday.com/html/articles/emailAlerts.html)


Instead of jumping at every email that comes through, interrupting you no matter what you are doing, decide ahead of time how often you will be (1) glancing at email just to look for urgent messages and (2) when you will be actually “working” or processing your email, which will take longer and may need to be scheduled for two or three times a day. If you don’t block time to process your email, so that the rest of the time you are working on other priorities, then you’re liable to get lost in email reactivity… all day long… again.



Changing your mind-set and your approach from ‘reactive’ to ‘pro-active’ will help your productivity tremendously throughout your day. Take charge! If you can be more clear and assertive about what you need or want in order to reach your next level of success, then you will benefit greatly and so may your department or your company.