Tips for Increasing Your Productivity by Minimizing Workplace Interruptions

How many times have you waltzed into your office in the morning and greeted the to-do-list waiting on your desk with confidence, sure that you'll get through it all today? Yet somehow, by late afternoon you've only checked off one or two items on the list.

You understand the basics of time management. You make your lists, break big projects down into small tasks, and focus on your job. Yet time still manages to creep away from you at work, leaving goals unmet and projects undone.

Most likely, you're the victim of too many workplace interruptions.

Maybe you're the one everyone else in the office goes to with questions, because you've been around the longest or have the best understanding of processes or your computer systems. Maybe you're constantly responding to inquiries from clients or customers at the expense of producing the product or service you're supposed to be giving them. Or perhaps you're a manager who knows how important it is to be accessible to your staff, so you're constantly putting your own work aside to listen to their issues, questions or ideas.

Being responsive and available to your customers, co-workers and staff is important. But if you're letting interruptions constantly impact your own productivity, then you may need to rethink how you operate. Otherwise, you'll end up not meeting critical goals and deadlines, or work so much overtime that you risk burning out or neglecting your family or personal life.

With a bit of planning and finesse, you can minimize interruptions in your workday while still being responsive and available to colleagues and clients who need your attention. Below are some strategies you can put in place to improve your performance without neglecting others or working round the clock.

Let the Phone Ring Now and Then

We're conditioned to believe that providing good service means picking up the phone and responding to inquiries right away. But unless you work for an emergency hotline, it is usually acceptable to let a phone call roll into voice mail now and then.

When your primary task is to answer questions and be responsive, pick up the phone. But when you've slated time for working on something that requires concentration or is up against a deadline, let your voice mail do its job. Have a clear, concise message on your voice recording directing callers to leave detailed questions and contact information.

The main reason having to leave voice messages sparks complaints is because many don't return calls promptly. Treat responding to messages as another task. Schedule time to retrieve and respond to your messages each day, and handle them in batch. If others know you can be counted on to get back to them quickly, they shouldn't mind having to leave a message.

Check Your Email Regularly, But Not Constantly

Much like our phones, we've come to consider email as something we must react to right away. Some of us are almost addicted to waiting for and responding to new messages. But unless your role is providing "real time" email customer service, there's probably not a need to stop what you're doing every time you get a new message.

Instead of checking your email several times an hour, schedule periodic points throughout the day where you review and respond to messages.

Make Sure Questions Can Be Answered Without Talking to You

Use your creativity to keep people from calling your or popping into your office several times a day.

Make a list of the most common questions or issues that create interruptions. Then document the answers, processes or "how-to" guidelines and get them out there in an easily accessible format.

If you're the one everyone comes to when they're confused about a particular policy or how to use a software program, write up an explanation, instructions or guidelines. Provide them as a handout to your co-workers, send them in an email, or post them on your company's internal web site or shared drive.

If your customers are always contacting you for the same information, train others in your office, particularly your frontline staff, to provide answers or resources. Post a "Frequently Asked Questions" page or similar document on your web site.

Have Alternate Processes in Place for Making Requests

Often people show up on your doorstep or bombard your message box with requests because they don't know how else to ask for something you provide.

Maybe you're responsible for scheduling a meeting space, setting up user access to a computer system, assigning staff support to others or troubleshooting particular problems or issues. Instead of having people constantly come to you directly, set up a standard process for requesting your services. It can be a form completed at your service counter or lobby, an online request form that can be sent to a generic email account that you check regularly, or both.

Communicate Information Needs and Turnaround Times Clearly

Incomplete processes require us to spend much more time responding to an inquiry than we should.

Make sure your clients or co-workers are aware of all the information you need to collect to provide them with a service ahead of time. For example, make sure your online request form for troubleshooting computer issues requires people to include all their account information and describe issues in detail. Otherwise, you'll have to follow up with them to collect additional information before you can even begin to resolve their problem, instead of just addressing and resolving it.

We also waste tons of valuable time responding to "is it done yet" inquiries. I've been in many situations where I desperately wanted to reply to a customer who called for the third time asking "when will my widget/paper/account be ready" with "when you stop wasting time I could be actually finishing it with calls asking me about whether it's done!"

These types of calls will never go away entirely, but can be minimized by making process turnaround times clear. If preparing a certain document or responding to a particular issue usually takes three business days, include that information in your discussions, forms and print and online information.

Block Out Time on Office Calendars

Oddly enough, we sometimes have to actually schedule time in the office to actually work.

Many offices maintain computerized or bulletin board calendars that are used to schedule meetings or let colleagues know who is available at a particular time. Make sure that you have a reasonable amount of time on these calendars that is blocked out as "unavailable."

Of course, this is far from foolproof. The boss or frazzled co-workers will find you if they feel they need you badly enough. But blocking out time to focus on projects or assignments might help keep people from scheduling you in meetings or assuming they can drop by your office for a lengthy discussion at that time.

Disappear

Sometimes in spite of your best efforts it is next to impossible to avoid unnecessary interruptions. Your co-workers know you're mired in a project, but the temptation to stop by for "just one quick question" is overwhelming because you're right in front of them.

If possible, make arrangements to be invisible now and then.

It might be as simple as closing your office door for one or two hours a day. Or, if you don't have a door to close, maybe you can take your laptop and disappear into an empty conference room, office, or cubicle space where you wouldn't normally be found when you're facing deadline pressure.

In my organization, we have a "project office" located in another building on campus. There's a laptop set up there. When those of us assigned to a particular project have tasks to complete for it, we can schedule time to remove ourselves from our day-to-day location and use the quiet, removed project office as a place to focus and get things done.

Ideally, you may even be able to arrange an occasional work-from-home agreement with your boss. This not only removes you from daily interruptions, but also buys a bit of extra time by taking away your commute. Even one day a week, every two weeks or month can help you keep caught up.

Tweak Your Schedule

Another option to explore is arranging your schedule so that you're working during minimal interruption times.

I have one co-worker, a member of our technical staff, who worked with our managers to switch his standard workweek from Monday-Friday to Tuesday-Saturday. This enabled him to be in the office during the relative solitude of a Saturday, getting things done while most others were away. He could do this without working ridiculous amounts of overtime. He now knows he has at least one day a week where he can focus on required projects without constant cries of "my printer isn't working!" or "what does this error message mean?"

Maybe you can explore a similar arrangement with your boss. Or maybe you can discuss coming in and leaving earlier than most, so that you have a few hours each morning to focus before co-workers arrive and your office is open for business. If you're more of a night owl, maybe you can tweak your schedule to come in and stay later than most, so that your focus time rolls around when everyone else has gone home for the day.

Hold "Open Door" Office Hours

Sometimes people interrupt us just because they don't realize that's what they're doing.

You can control how often your work is disrupted by making it clear when you will be available to help others. If your job lends itself to doing so, schedule and publicize hours that you will be available on a daily or weekly basis for general inquiries and questions.

By doing this, you give people who need your support guidelines about when they can "just drop by." By scheduling and promoting time that is blocked out just for this purpose, you also gently point out that you aren't always able to deal with the concerns of others.

Have Regular Update Meetings

Certain people you work with need regular updates on what's going on in your world. Whether it is the status of a project, changes in customer service practices, or guidelines on a new process or system, they're looking to you for answers. If you don't go to them, they'll come to you. So rather than handle everyone's concerns or questions on a one-on-one basis as they think to ask you, schedule regular update meetings to keep everyone informed. No one wants to add an extra meeting to their schedule. But isn't it better to go to one weekly or monthly meeting to provide updates to ten people rather than deal with all ten of them on an individual basis?

Every organization and job is different. Strategies that work well for managing interruptions in one job may be impossible in another. But by exploring a combination of work location and schedule changes, communication initiatives, and scheduling and promoting your "available" and "busy" hours, you can minimize the daily interruptions that either keep you from completing assignments or have you constantly putting in overtime. By trying a variety of time management tactics, you can find the system that lets you be both productive and responsive at work.