Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
No matter what kind of job you do or the things that happen at home you are interrupted from time to time. This interruption could be a phone call, it can be a text message, it can be an instant message, it could be a variety of different things. What's important is we have so many interruptions in our lives that we forget what we're working on. If you're working on a project and you're trying to do some things accomplished and you're constantly getting interrupted, what's that going to do to your flow? It's gonna slow it down. You're gonna have to take a few moments to get back in rhythm in working on whatever you're working on, which adds time to how long it takes you to get something done.
Many people use a variety of different methods to keep focused on things, whether it's closing their door if they have a door to close, or do not disturb sign or a variety of different methods. I want talk about the simple act of tracking the interruptions you have because you have no idea how many times you're interrupted in a day. The easy step here is on a post-it note or a sheet of paper or this free resource, track your interruptions over a week. That means every time you get an email that comes in chiming or if you have email open that pops up that's an interruption. A phone call, a text, someone stops by your desk, just keep track of it. You're going to be amazed how many interruptions happen in your life.
What you'll do with this information is come up with some ways to minimize those distractions because that's what they are. There's a lot of ways to go about it. If it's emails on your phone, then turn off that notification. I believe I've mentioned before that the only notifications I have on my phone are text messages. That's it. There's a couple projects I'm working on as well so if there's an update on those projects then I get a notification on those immediately because those are important things that I'm working on right now. But everything else, there's no notification. If I get an Instagram message or something like that, I won't see it unless I got into Instagram. Some people might think that's severe but if you wanna get focused and you wanna get things done, you need to establish these boundaries around these interruptions.
If you have an abnormal week when tracking then maybe stretch it out over to a month but I wouldn't do it more than that. Realizing how many times a day you're interrupted will allow you to take steps to fix that.
Until next time, be well.