Tame Your Interruptions

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Tame Your Interruptions

Think you can’t get anything done because of constant interruptions? You may be right. According to Jonathan Spira and Joshua Feintuch—authors of The Cost of Not Paying Attention: How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity (Basex, 2005)—28% of a knowledge worker’s day is taken up by unnecessary interruptions. In the US alone, these interruptions translate to an astonishing 28 billion lost hours yearly! Another study estimates that, on average, most of us are interrupted in our work about 50 times each day.

Here’s a way to get a handle on interruptions in your own work day: keep track of interruptions for one week. Keep a small notebook on your desk, and jot down a quick record of each interruption—date, time, name of interrupter, length of interruption, and what it was about. You’ll also want to rate each interruption with a 1 or 2 to indicate whether it was (1) Important or (2) Needless.

At week’s end, study the results and figure out how you can eliminate the Needless Interruptions. Perhaps one or two people are responsible for most of those interrutions; if so, find an agreeable way to point out that they are consistently interfering with your work.

On the other hand, maybe you, yourself, are responsible for many of the interruptions. For example, maybe you’re jumping eagerly at your email inbox each time you hear the words “You Have Mail” (or whatever). If so, consider revising your approach to email. Turn off the sound, or just keep the program closed and only look at email two or three times per day.

And for a humorous take on this subject, be sure to check out the Bureau of Workplace Interruption. The folks there boast that they “harness interruptive technology to expose the secret possibilities of the workday.” Fill out their form and they will endeavor to “create surprise, the kind that slices through the banal and opens up new places for your mind to wander.”

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© Suzanne Rodriguez
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