How You Spend Your Day

Some days this is how I feel…

How about You?

Truth is, I don’t think there is a person alive who doesn’t get distracted with one emergency or another. If there is someone who can work through their entire day without another person coming to them with a project on which they need their help, I’d bet it’s a person who won’t be there very long — apparently no one trusts them to help out in a pinch!

The trick is finding a way to minimize the distractions, rapidly prioritize the incoming requests, and still find time to cross things off your list before you’re overwhelmed with the new items being added.

Before any of these tips and tricks will prove effective, you need to establish in your own mind what activities produce the results you’re trying to get. What tasks do you need to accomplish in order to earn more revenue, ship more product, close more sales, etc. AND you need to know which hours are most productive for you personally to execute these projects. Only then will you know which hours of the day you need to protect from these delays.

Some tips I’ve found useful:

• Log-Out of Social Media
  Not just keep the window closed, but log-out. That means on your phone too!  So many of social networks set off alarms, bells, whistles, and flares when someone adds you, comments on you, uploads a photo, looks at one of your photos, or even THINKS of your name that we spend a hour a day just picking up our phones to quiet the alarm and then put it back down — and that’s not counting the time we take to click over to the page to see what triggered the alert.
• Start an Hour Early
  I work from home an hour before I ever go into the office. It allows me to get a head start on the important projects of the day before anyone even sees me for the first time that day. This time is especially effective for writing articles, blog posts, and catching up on articles I flagged to read later.
• Fly a Flag
  If you’re lucky enough to have a door to your work area — use it. But if you work in an open area or in a cube farm, establish some sort of fun (not rude!) signal to your co-workers that you’re in the middle of a project and would prefer not to be disturbed at the moment. Try a novelty flag you can put on your desk or a sign you can hang above your cubicle. I wear headphones; not only does it show people I’m otherwise occupied, but it also allows for me to play my productivity tunes to help move me along.
• Set Office Hours for Interruptions
  Let your team know that unless something (or someone) is literally on fire, to jot down the issue and approach you during specific hours of the day.
• White Board and Post-It Note Bulletins
  You know how the television stations run news bulletins at the bottom of the screen for weather alerts and school closings? Create the same  practice in your own office. Rather then having the person interrupt you just ask that they write a note on your office white board or stick a post-it on your wall. This way you know there is an issue you need to address and know at a glance whether you really need to stop your current project to deal with it.

No process is bullet-proof, but one of these has GOT to be better than how you’re dealing with interruptions right now!