Interruptions « An Extra Hour Every Day

Dec

18

How to reduce interruptions from your boss

by Nicolas

Many superiors take it for granted that their direct reports are always available for their issues and don’t consider that their calls or sudden visits might interrupt someone else. If such behavior is typical for your boss, you can try to change it actively by talking to him and proposing a regular meeting or briefing.

1) Talk to your boss

Your boss might not be aware of how much he is disturbing you. The first step is to tell him in an appropriate manner that you wish to structure the way you interact in a different way. Please check my article on how to criticize other people. You can also tell him that he is disturbing himself too each time he come to you. If you had a regular meeting it would not only save your time but also his time.

2) Ask for a regular meeting

Ask your boss for a regular meeting. Depending on how closely you work together a weekly meeting or daily briefing is appropriate. This meetings purpose is to quickly exchange information on what is coming up, receive tasks from your boss and return deliverables from previous meetings. This meeting ideally takes place early in the morning, so that there are less surprises for the rest of the day.

3) Carry something to work on with you

If you regularly are called to your boss or to a meeting and often have to wait outside until it is your turn, take something to work on with you. You can convert this waiting time into productive time. It also makes a good impression and improves your image in the company.

Of course there always will be some sudden and urgent matters coming up. Depending on what kind of business your company is in you will have to cope with a certain amount of interruptions from your boss. However, the above mentioned items should help you to significantly reduce such interruptions. If there is no change in the behavior of your boss you might have to consider changing position or company.

Related articles:

Share and Enjoy:

Comments: (1)

Dec

12

Avoid conversations during work

by Nicolas

There is nothing more unproductive at work than casual conversations with colleagues - especially when they are not related to work. You should therefore avoid private conversations during your meetings and reduce interruptions for a chat in phases of work.

On the other hand it is important to maintain good relationships in your organization and the informal exchange of information often is very fruitful for your work too. I therefore suggest using specific time slots for this by:

- Systematically select the people you go to lunch with

- Planning some coffee breaks in between two tasks or meetings and allowing a small chat in the coffee corner, but restrict the length

- Go for a drink after work with a colleague from time to time

- Regularly attend the company’s events

Related articles:

Share and Enjoy:

Comments: (0)

Dec

09

How to reduce interruptions from your direct reports

by Nicolas

If you supervise other people you might get interrupted frequently by your direct reports. If this is the case you need to take some action to improve communication and reduce interruptions.

1) Do you have regular meetings?

If there is a regular team or one to one meeting people collect not so urgent items for discussion during the meeting. You only get disturbed for urgent matters. Without such regular communication opportunity there is no other choice than coming to you to ask and most people then tend to go for each single item.

2) Do you empower your subordinates?

Are your direct reports allowed to make their own decisions? Do they know their limitations and are these large enough to work autonomously? Otherwise people have to come to you all the time to confirm each action or decision. Slowly increase the responsibility the delegate and you will usually see that people react positively.

3) Did you establish communication rules?

It sometimes is a good idea to establish basic communication rules. These rules define when to better write a mail, pick-up the phone or coming in for a meeting. You should also make clear how you prefer to communicate with you team.

4) Do you respond quickly?

Do you respond quickly to your emails or do employees only get a response if they personally come to you and clarify the item on the spot. If this is the case you first have to improve your response time. It will require a little bit more time in the beginning but it will quickly pay of through a reduction of interruptions.

Related articles:

Share and Enjoy:

Comments: (1)

Dec

03

Stop interrupting yourself

by Nicolas

When talking about interruptions we usually talk about other people or external factors. However, we sometimes voluntarily interrupt ourselves. You interrupt yourself when you:

Walk around the office without a clear goal
Often have a chat with colleagues in order to better know them
Go out frequently for a coffee or snack
Suddenly make unplanned phone calls for networking
Suddenly have to check something on the Internet

If you recognize yourself here I recommend keeping a log of these interruptions for a few weeks. In the ideal case you also write down what you should have been doing during this time, since these interruptions could also closely be linked to procrastination.

When your analysis is complete you can start working on changing these bad habits, which significantly reduce your productivity.

Comments: (0)

Sep

16

Restrict your email time

by Nicolas

Most of us are checking their email more or less permanently. By switching to your email inbox all the time permanently interrupt your other work. You become highly inefficient in processing your email as well as in your other work. I once heard a manager say “you work or you email”. This of course it not an option and we have to learn to take most benefit from email by using it effectively.

The underlying problem for this is our perception of communication via email. Face to face meetings, instant messaging or phone calls can be categorized as synchronous communication. All participants in the communication are present at the same time physically or remotely.

In contrast to this asynchronous communication does not require all involved parties to be present at the same time. This is obvious for postal mail but also applies to discussion boards and email.

The problem is that many people perceive email as a synchronous communication tool and therefore believe that emails need to be answered instantly. I once even met someone from a Korean consulting company where an internal rule stipulated that emails had to be answered within 15 minutes unless you are in a meeting.

Once you understand that email is asynchronous communication you can radically change the way you are dealing with your email inbox. It might sound uncool but the following habits with regards to email will significantly boost you productivity:

Define a fixed time during which you will go through your emails. Ideally you set it at the same time every day. (e.g. 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon or evening).
Inform people around you when you deal with emails and that they should give you a phone call when something is urgent and requires immediate action.
When you work through your emails you start with the one in the top and work yourself to the bottom in SEQUENTIAL order. If you do cherry picking and open those mails first you are most interested in, you will have to deal with those you don’t like at the end which increases the risk of procrastination.
Take an action on each email once you opened it. Think about how much time you are wasting when you open and close mails dozens of times over a week or longer without taking action. If you are not sure immediately rather keep the mail open and take the time to think about it thoroughly. In the end it will save you time and you feel much better after you solved the problem on what to do with this mail.
If you have difficulties in really focusing on one thing only during that time you can use an egg-timer or sand-clock. It is a strong symbol and it will help you to stick to your plan. This also works for other areas too of course.
When you are on the road and using your mobile phone or blackberry these tips do not apply. Here you are using time which otherwise would be idle. You will not have to deal with those things you cleared on the road during your email hour.

Related articles:

Reference:

“Peter Pamela Rose, Master Life/ Career Coach, Chiropractor for the Mind www.peterpamelarose.com

Share and Enjoy:

Comments: (0)

Sep

05

Quit smoking at work

by Nicolas

Going for a smoke is one of most frequent work interruptions for smokers. Regulations on smoking at public places get more and more severe around the world. Going for the smokers corner therefore becomes longer and longer, which on one hand requires a lot of time and also offers room for multiple interruptions on the way.

Where you smoke or not is none of my business and your personal decision. One consideration might be not to smoke at work anymore (where you might suffer discrimiation too) and enjoy a good smoke in your private time. The reward for being patient during working time could be to use the budget savings achieved here to invest into high quality tobacco for your leisure time making this one a better experience.

Share and Enjoy:

Comments: (1)

Jul

21

Where to position your desk in your room

by Nicolas

If you have a private office room you have consider where to position your desk. Many people will intuitively position the desk front to the door, which gives a certain sense of control of your space.

However people who just pass by your office might distract you and they might have the feeling that they can just come in. You should rather position your desk in a 90 degree angle to the door. If you want you will see the person passing by and you can choose to react. In case you want to keep working on what you are currently doing you don’t look to the door. Even if it is open people will less dare to come in to just say hello.

Related articles:

Share and Enjoy:

Comments: (0)

Jul

12

Plan time buffers in your day

by Nicolas

Do not fill every minute of your day with appointments and tasks without buffers. There will always be new tasks coming up through out the day as well as interruptions or delays.

It is wise to plan 30% buffer throughout your day so that you have the time to react to such things without endangering your plan. In case you have spare time you can use it for conceptional work or to already complete tasks due later.

Related articles:

Share and Enjoy:

Comments: (1)

Jul

10

Files required by many

by Nicolas

If you are storing materials or files that other people have to access frequently, move them to another place. This will significantly reduce the number of interruptions.

Related articles:

Share and Enjoy:

Comments: (0)

Jul

07

Go to office early

by Nicolas

Going to work early in the morning has many advantages:

1) Less commuting time

Early in the morning streets and trains are not crowded yet and it will take you less time to get to the office. In case you use public transportation you have a much higher chance to get a seat and you can also use the time more productive for reading o learning.

2) No interruptions

Early in the morning there will be few people in the office only. This will allow you to properly plan your day and get the most important things done without being interrupted by visitors, phone calls or new mails.

You are still fresh and concentrated and one hour early in the morning is probably as productive as staying two hours longer in the office in the evening.

Related articles:

Share and Enjoy: