Coping with interruptions

Keep it down - I'm trying to think.

Distractions come in many different shapes, sizes and forms. At the moment my daughter is ferreting around in the kitchen, the kittens are hard at play, and the washing machine is humming along in the background.

That's the trouble with open plan housing and offices, we are constantly surrounded by noise. Other people impacting on our thoughts and the amount of work we can get through in any one day. As a writer, sometimes the noise can be a welcome distraction to a complex plot line, but most of the time it's down right annoying.

But it's not just people who distract us - I bet most of you leave your email account open all day, and your eye strays to the windows that pop up telling you that you have a new message - you do don't you. You make a split second decision whether or not you are sufficiently bored to go and read the message, or whether the message is important enough for you to stop whatever it is you are doing and read it. Either way your productivity has just gone down the drain. Whichever way you decide - read it or not, your brain has moved from the creative phase it was in, back into the linear phase of do this, must do that. The problem is that it can take several minutes of uninterrupted time to get back to where you were BEFORE the interruption.

How many of you get several uninterrupted minutes before you are distracted again? No, me neither.

There is a children's book entitled "five minutes peace" you should read if you get the chance. Mama Elephant is trying to read the paper and eat her breakfast when....she gets 3 minutes and 45 seconds.

But how do you cope with the constant barrage of interruptions - some of which we welcome and some of which we could do without?

Well a few things that may work for you:

If you work in an open plan office, and you can get permission - take your mp3 player into work. Plug it in and tune out of the office politics and noise. But don't try this if you're on reception, clients may get a little annoyed if they can't get through cos you're listening to the top 40.

Have a designated time to open, read and answer all your emails. Have a disclaimer on the bottom of your email signature/auto reply that says that you are currently not at your desk and you will reply by the end of the working day. They do not need to know that you are working on other things. Remember pigeon post? Well email has made us slaves to other people's time frames. Claim back some of this by this one simple technique and your productivity will go through the roof. Just remember to spend half an hour at the end of the working day to reply to those message that you need to reply to and end your day having completed major items off your task lists.

Walk with purpose. People will rarely stop you if you look like you are going somewhere in a hurry.

Have doors fitted on your home office. Close the door and explain that now is working time....play time comes later. A girlfriend has practiced this technique for many years - and now has a masters degree and has just completed her doctorate, whilst holding down a full time job, breeding burmese cats and raising a family.

Keep a time log. You can download a copy of this from the site if you haven't got one already...http://www.motivateme.info/downloads-and-free-stuff/ this really does get to the heart of where you spend your time on a daily basis.

Try one, or try them all. You will be amazed at how much more you can get done if you do.

(MMW1) 

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