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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeart Radio.
Good morning. This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is to figure out the source of your interruptions.
And if you are interrupting yourself, do your best to stop it.
Today's tip, like another one this week, comes from psychologist Tessa West. She's a professor at New York University, an expert on interpersonal communication at work, and the author of the book Job Therapy, Finding Work That Works For You.
If you're like a lot of knowledge workers, you may feel like you are spinning your wheels at work because you are constantly being interrupted.
interrupted. Of course, anytime someone says something is always happening, that raises my eyebrows.
I mean, really? Always?
How many times are we really talking?
This is one reason to track time, so we know exactly what is happening in a given workday.
So you won't be surprised that West advises a version of this.
People who feel concerned about interruptions should track which which tasks are getting interrupted for a few days and then ask yourself who or what interrupted you.
After that, you can categorize these interruptions as internal or external.
External interruptions are things like a colleague dropping by your desk, a call from your child's school, having to put away your laptop to get off the train at your stop, or pausing your work to go to a meeting.
Internal interruptions are things like like going to get a cup of coffee, reading a text, checking your email, switching from one work tasks to another, or remembering you want to call your mom for her birthday and doing it right then, before you forget.
Some of these may be worthwhile, but they also come from you.
You interrupted yourself.
Yes, that is even true with email and texts.
You might be worried there's something urgent there.
But as the nature of these communications is that they are asynchronous, they seldom have to be checked at that exact moment versus, say, 20 minutes early or 20 minutes later.
West encourages people who want to minimize interruptions to start with self -interruptions and explore their source.
Yes, perhaps the external interruptions are more annoying and may even be more frequent, but in many cases those are harder to do something about.
The internal ones are within our control.
So that is the best place to make immediate progress.
So examine the conditions.
What leads you to interrupt yourself?
Maybe it's knowing that you are about to get something important from your boss.
And so you repeatedly pause whatever you are working on to see whether that email has arrived.
Or maybe you interrupt yourself when you find the project you are working on stressful or boring.
You're looking for relief from that.
or maybe you interrupt yourself when a thought crosses your mind that you want to follow up on because you're worried you'll forget it, or maybe your interruptions tend to be more physical.
You suddenly feel like you'd like a glass of water or a snack or a sweater.
Anxiety might cause your self -interruptions too.
Anytime you see the number of new messages on your email or LinkedIn increase, do you feel compelled to see what's there?
With awareness, you may be able to reduce some of these.
For instance, if every afternoon you get thirsty and stop to get something to drink, bring a glass of water to your desk.
If you can't resist hopping over in response to new messages and notifications, turn off the audio alerts and minimize the windows because you can't be interrupted by a new message that you're not aware of.
This can also work if you are distracted by knowing you're about to get something important.
Even if you minimize the window and check for the important message as frequently as every 15 minutes or so, that is still fewer interruptions than if you check every time the number on your box goes up.
If boredom or stress about a hard task drives your interruptions, you might be able to become a little more resilient.
See what strategies work.
Maybe it's breaking a big project down into smaller bits.
Maybe it's the promise of rewards.
If I finish these three parts of this boring project, I can take a 20 -minute walk outside on this beautiful day.
Some interruptions are inevitable, and some are completely outside our control.
But when we can understand why and how we interrupt ourselves, we're able to eliminate at least some of our interruptions.
That way we can focus and get more done.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at laura at lauravandercam .com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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