Most people encounter frequent interruptions, most of which adversely affect productivity. Interruptions are detrimental, not only to productivity but also to job satisfaction, employee morale, and life balance. They lead to a loss of energy, enthusiasm, and loss of momentum.
Interruptions fall into the following three categories:
– External Interruptions: include phone calls, emails, meeting people in hallways.
– Internal Interruptions: where you interrupt yourself by checking sports scores, celebrity gossip, daydreaming, or thinking about the past or future.
– Interrupting Others: when you interrupt others.
Some interruptions, albeit few, are positive – these are ones that help you achieve your goals faster.
Given the high costs of interruptions, one may ask how we control them? Here are seven ways to better manage interruptions:
1. Understand what these interruptions are and whether they are really necessary. Keeping a log recording different types of interruptions helps you understand and course correct.
2. Schedule routine meetings and tell your team in advance to prepare a running list of things to cover. This way you can attend to all the respective individual needs in one scheduled interruption.
3. Communicate your schedule to your workgroup so everyone knows when they can interrupt you.
4. Block out periods of time during the day for interruptions so to get uninterrupted time to complete your own priorities.
5. Incorporating flex time and accepting interruptions allows you to plan for them and be better prepared to deal with them effectively and efficiently.
6. Voicemail lets people leave messages for you, thus avoiding phone call interruptions.
7.Work away from the office for some period of the day to avoid interruption and enhance your productivity.
Devote any surplus time saved from interruptions to key priorities that have the highest impact. Succumbing to an interruption in itself is not the culprit. It is what you get interrupted for, as well as how and when you get interrupted.
Start fresh today and create uninterrupted time to avoid interrupting your own success!