Day 78 — Productivity series 5/7: “Managing Distraction”
Have you ever wished that you can just focus on work without everyone hovering over, bothering you with questions or loud chat? “Keep your friends close, and your enemy closer;” except for managing our own time and priority well, we also have to manage the outside force that impact your work and schedule. Distraction, the arch enemy of productivity, is a historically notorious villain who creeps into your busy day and drag you down away from your road to success.
“Keep your friends close, and your enemy (distraction) closer.” — Michael Corleone, Godfather II
How do we defend ourselves against distractions? Today I’d like to talk about a strategy in the following breakdown:
- Types of Distractions
- Countermeasure: Ways to solve
Types of Distractions
In order to come up with a plan to avoid distractions, first we’ll need to understand what distractions could be like. They come in all sizes and shapes, but there are mainly 4 types as listed below:
- Electronic Messages: Whether it’s email, texting, corporate IM like Skype/Slack/Hipchat, there’s always something going on on your computer that’s not you want to focus on.
- Contextual Noise: Your coworker might be passionately talking about what happened on Game of Thrones last night, arguing with internet service provider, or discussing what to eat for lunch. Like it or not, there’s almost no way to avoid contextual noise in an Open Office setting.
- Ad hoc inquiries/ meetings: Your coworker might tap on your shoulder because you’re an expert in certain field; your boss might need you to get something done quickly; your team might need your guidance/ review on something they are working on; your counterparts might need you to explain what you’ve delivered to unblock their progress. These requests don’t always come in a specific time that’s convenient to you.
- Miscellaneous: Office building fire drill, software update, spam phone call, etc. Sometimes there are just some random and uncontrollable distractions that prevent you from focusing on your work.
What are other distractions that impact your productivity? It might be helpful to look at your calendar, and review what’s stopping you from a productive day.
Countermeasure: Ways to solve
Now that we understand the types of distractions, it’s time for us to come up with a plan to save our productivity from it. There are many tips that might help you and your team to increase productivity by preventing/ eliminating/ reducing these distractions; let’s break it down to 2 types of methods: Individual level and Team level:
Individual level
- Emails: Instead of checking email every time you receive an notification, only check email 3 times a day: beginning of the day, mid day, and late afternoon. If anything is more urgent than that, people will find way to contact you: phone, through other coworkers, etc.
- IMs: Only use break time to check IMs. For example, when you’re done with one task or after a meeting, check your IM. Otherwise, just ignore it.
- Focus time: If you need some time to finish a big task, block out some time on your calendar so that you don’t have to worry about someone schedule a meeting during that time.
- Busy indication: Whether it’s setting your IM status as “Do not disturb”, or putting an auto-reply Out-of-Office message, letting people know you need some “Me Time” helps you get the job done.
- Office hour: In case you’re worried about not giving people enough access especially your team, setting up a dedicated time for them so that it’s predictable and easy to meet.
Team level
Rather than working along, working as a team to setup a common way makes it easier to work together. There are multiple ways to do it:
Setup expectations
Whether it’s a casual catch up, or a formal team meeting, discuss with team about how each other’s preferences in terms of work style. Some people prefer more alone time, getting things done fast and go home; some other are more chatty and emphasizing team bonding. Finding out everyone’s styles help respect each other space and remove friction and distraction.
Setup protocol
To fully boost productivity, a structural way for the whole team works well in a high-performance team. Below are some example protocols:
- No-Meeting Wednesdays: This is an effective way to guarantee the whole team will have dedicated time to focus on delivery;
- Headphone policy: Another way to let everyone know if someone is busy, is having a headphone policy. If someone has his/her headphone on, it means they’re in “Do-no-disturb” mode.
- Pomodoro: It’s a technique to have the whole team work and break on the same schedule. For example, everyone works 25 minutes, and breaks 5 minutes as a set; After 4 sets, everyone can take a longer break. During those 25 period of work time, unless it’s previously scheduled, everyone just work alone and not to bother each other. Because everyone‘s schedule is in sync, it eliminate most of the distractions and creates the best productivity.
Conclusion
- First step of defending ourselves from distractions is to identify the source;
- Try to reduce the frequency of checking IM and emails by setting dedicated time to do so;
- If possible, setup a protocol with team to let each other know when it’s collaboration time and when it’s work-alone time.
What are some methods you use to avoid distraciotns?I’m eager to learn from you.
ABC. Always be clappin’.
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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not represent current or previous client or employer views.
