Decimate Distractions

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Suppose you’re working with your computer and the monitor starts fading. It flickers back on, then conks out for good. Bingo, your tension level rockets upward because this event is frustrating. You had a decent notion of what you wanted to finish that morning. Waiting around for your office’s tech support staff wasn’t included on your list. Office distractions and interruptions, in a word, suck!

When you find yourself in an environment (or for that matter, a whole society) that subjects you to all manner of distractions and interruptions, even the smallest of tasks can loom larger. Sometimes the reason that you procrastinate on a project is that you anticipate interruption. To eliminate this possibility, eliminate distraction. It’s like Terminix without the bugs.

To concentrate, you may have to escape from everyday events. For example, hold your calls, don’t accept visitors, and forgo constantly checking e-mail. These distractions could be a reason for your procrastination, so eliminate them and give yourself some uninterrupted time. Yes, that means no Facebook or MySpace. If you’re constantly tempted to surf the Web, check your e-mail, or play Spider Solitaire when you should be working, you might benefit from a program like Temptation Blocker, at http://sourceforge.net/projects/temptblocker , which enables you to “lock yourself out of specific applications” for the amount of time that you specify.

If you think the task will take an hour, make sure that you don’t have distractions for at least ninety minutes. If you finish sometime between thirty and ninety minutes later, you can always re-enter “the world” as you choose. Occasionally, it makes sense to simply go to a private place, such as a soundproof room or bank vault, so that you can give your full attention to a particular task.


Combating Distractions and Interruptions

Not surprisingly – to me, anyway – the single most challenging workplace stressor is interruption. From a list of more than fifteen stressors at work cited by managers, including work load, organizational politics, disciplining someone, dealing with upper management, balancing work and personal life, working within budgets, conducting performance reviews, and interruptions, you guessed it… interruptions was number one!

Years back, a study conducted by Industrial Engineer magazine found that the typical interruption sustained by managers lasted between six and nine minutes… bad but not crushing. Now hear this: The average time managers needed to “recover” from interruptions last an additional three to twenty-three minutes! Even if your math SATs weren’t that great, you can quickly surmise that even a mere handful of distractions and interruptions per hour can flatten your productivity like a pancake. It is any wonder that most career professional consider interruptions to be the most stressful aspect of their jobs? Now throw 120 people into one large room separated by flimsy cubicles and I think you see where office productivity is headed.

Never mind the old adage, “It’s so noisy, I can’t hear myself think.” Today, in some environments it’s so noisy, you can’t hear yourself speak!

A consultant consulted for a manager who supervised six employees. He sought to accomplish more on the job, but with each of his staffers coming to him with questions every couple of hours, he was at his wit’s end. If each employee asked a question every two hours, in total the manager was asked an average of four questions each day, per person.

With six employees, that meant he fielded twenty-four questions a day, or 120 interruptions per week. This resulted in disruptions of the manager’s work three times each hour in a forty-hour week! Now add in how long it took to “recover” from each interruption and, potentially, his whole day was consumed by distraction!
Not fun.

Consultant suggested a system to help him cope with the interruptions and to gain control of his time. Consultant called it the J-4 System. (The “J” was for “Jeff”. You can use your own initial.) Consultant requested that the manager allocate the questions he received into four categories:

1. The answer to the first type of distraction, a J-1 type distraction, was already in print and did not need a personal reply from the supervisor (it was in the company policy manual or someplace similar). The manager could tell his staff people, “Please don’t concern me with these kinds of distractions (J-1); go ahead and review materials you already have to find the answer.”

2. A J-2 type distraction represented a question that peer of bookkeeper could answer; the manager did not need to handle the question and could either quickly refer the employee to another person or ask that certain questions be taken directly to someone else.

3. J-3 type distractions required only a straightforward yes or no answer. These questions required interaction with the supervisor, but not much – a quick phone call, buzz on the intercom, or beep on a pager.

4. Last came the J-4 type distraction. It represented a question that required the manager’s input – one that he needed or wanted to, answer. “Yes, send it my way.” “I’ll handle it.” “You bet I’m concerned.”

In the course of a week, how many questions might be of the J-4 level of importance? Assume that each person asked two J-4 questions per day for a total of sixty interruptions each week.



Regards,



Timben