This article is an extract from “Are Interruptions Stealing Your Time and Costing You a Bucket Full of Money?”
External interruptions
Step 1 – Advise Others Of Your Availability
Advising others of your availability. Firstly who interrupts you the most? Is it employees, colleagues, clients, friends or family? Think about when your most productive hours in the day are and choose a block of time in the period that you can reserve for you to have un-interrupted time to focus on certain projects or tasks.
Once decided upon, inform your availability to the main people that could potentially interrupt you.
Needless to say, good staff training and systems need to be strongly in place to assist employees to work independently for any length of time.
Step 2 – Turn off Emails
Now it does depend on your business and situation – however, if you can turn the pop up emails off and start to think about set times of the day to check your emails, that’s a great start. Many successful business people say checking emails a maximum of three times a day is ideal. This can be very hard to do in the beginning so maybe start with baby steps – once an hour perhaps or if you are very addicted start with once every half an hour.
If social media is also something you check regularly you may like to include this in your new schedule also. I am also currently looking into an app that you can actually set times to lock yourself out of social media and email. Once I have found the best one and tested it I will advise in further correspondence via my facebook page. You will find me on facebook as – Linda McMahon The Accountability and Time Management Chick or email me at Linda@LindaMcMahon.com.au and I can send you the information when available.
Step 3 – Turn Off Your Phone
Turn phones off and send the calls to message bank/answering service/receptionist etc. We all know we can just turn phones off or switch them to silent and check periodically for urgent messages, so why don’t we? Because we think we might miss out on something? Maybe it’s because we feel we are expected to be available all the time?
Many successful business people state that the benefits of having blocks of totally un-interrupted time far outweigh the odd time they miss something important. Again, it depends on you and your situation – however, a good way to reduce phone interruptions or to give you strength to turn off or divert your phone is to ensure you have tended to step number one – letting others know of your availability. If you have an iphone you can also use “Do Not Disturb’ in your ‘Settings’ area to mute notifications as calls and emails come through. The same for androids eg Samsungs go to ‘Settings’ then ‘Blocking mode’.