If we are doing a job that needs full focus, and again and again, we get disturbed by our colleagues/family… So that we can’t continue with our job…
Good news that the problem is quite common…
After research, an interruption in our work-flow can cost us 25 minutes…when we need uninterrupted time to think… and even 25% of these tasks can’t be resolved on the same day!
Solution: Don’t overthink?
(jokes must be)
The programmers who are designing computer software, even have to cope with an interruption in their work-flow up to every 3 minutes…
The problem is:
Not so much the interruption…but that we lose our control over our focus…
There was a research about 2 groups working under full focus. The first group gets disturbed on random through a loud noise.
The second group gets also disturbed on random through loud noise, but they can switch off this noise…
Results: The second group could get 5 times more things done than the first group… EVEN the first group didn’t use the switch to turn off the noise!
If we have a choice, our ego will comply much easier!
I was grown up in a big family (my mother got 5 kids in 3 years) and when somebody interrupted me with the things that I was doing, I got upset…
After some time, I learned to focus so much on the things that I was doing, that nobody could stop me, and even I could not recognize that my siblings were demanding something from me… I just switched them from inside off… Because I want to do the stuff…
I have written a lot of my books in noisy hotel lobbies…
Can you see the point?
If we give our jobs the highest priority and everything else is just a distraction… And distraction we can switch off.
It is not a miracle that IT-professionals have the highest focus and can deal even with an interruption every 3 minutes…
If your focus is to socialize with people, you don’t need and don’t have that focus.
Solution 2 (no joke)
You give your colleagues a manual about how to deal with you under construction!
Politeness wins:
Can I interrupt you?
(You don’t put on your desk a gun. Because this is threatening…)
You replay:
Yes
Not right now!
Wait a minute!
When it is urgent to interrupt you.
Sorry, please I need urgently something…
(And then you look in your drawer for the gun… )
Okay, if it must be, then I can help you….
When you are working in a corporation.
Ask to do a big task at home.
Or stick a paper on your room or in front of your desk (if this is possible in your firm), that you want to work for 1.5 hours (no interruption) from XX:00 to YY:00 and then you are available for XX minutes… And put off your phone…
My Video: How to deal with Interruption? https://youtu.be/ZsM-roC4M9I
My Audio on Podcast: RELAX WITH MEDITATION or see link in the end.
My Audio: https://rudizimmerer.s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/5/How+to+deal+with+Interruption.mp3