Are Interruptions Ruling Your Days?

You may feel powerless to prevent interruptions, but there are some simple remedies. The first step is to identify patterns. Click the link at the bottom of this post to download a useful interruption log from my website.**

Why not just use your memory? Because it's human nature to skew the data. When customer service reps were surveyed, they overwhelmingly responded that over 90% of the calls they received were negative and abusive. But after keeping a call log, it was determined that less than 10% of the calls were negative! We just have a stronger memory of the negative, because it stirs our emotions. Keeping the log helps you see the true patterns.

Keep this log for a week. The trick is to keep it as simple as possible. Enter the weekday (i.e. "Mon") only once, at the beginning of each day. Use initials or first names under "Who" if the person is well known to you. Use a quick check mark in the "Call?" or "Visit?" column. The entire process for each interruption should take less than a minute. At the end of the week, look for patterns.

Below are techniques to deal with specific patterns you identify.

Time of Day & Day of Week: If interruptions occur at certain times, schedule quick tasks you can do between interruptions in this time; schedule the thinking/creating time you need at another time of day. Evaluate how important the interruptions are – can someone else handle, would they go away if you weren’t available (out of the office)?

Who: If one person is contributing a sizable number of interruptions, evaluate why. Perhaps you need to schedule a regular time for them to talk with you during the week or day, and ask that all but true emergency situations be saved until then.

Call: For constant phone calls, block out forty-five minutes to an hour a day to work on projects and let your voice mail pick-up. Be sure to leave a message indicating the time you will pick up your messages. Eliminating that uncertainty lessens the need of the caller to keep on trying to reach you.

Visit: To reduce interruption time, stand when visitor enters room and while you answer their question, then move towards the door to usher them out.

Purpose: Are there any frequently asked questions? Create a FAQ sheet and post it where you can point to it the next time the question is asked. Or have the person who next asks a FAQ write down your response and add it to your FAQ sheet (less work for you and a great reinforcement for them. Try this one at home, too!)

Length: On the phone, indicate you have 5 minutes, at the end of 5 minutes, explain you need to go and hang up. See “Visit” for in-person interruptions.

Email interruptions: Schedule times when you check your email and stick to them. If you schedule time just before a meeting or a defined time to leave the office, you will find you deal with email more efficiently.

**Thanks to newsletter subscriber William M. Mayman, CPA, for adapting the original MS Word version to an Excel spreadsheet. What a great idea! Now you can sort columns to see patterns. Click to download.

To sort Excel spreadsheet: Highlight data to sort/click Data/click Sort. If you highlight only one column before sorting, you’ll get a dialog box; click “Expand the selection” so that all data in row stays in one row when sorted. If you have problems analyzing your log, consider a one-time phone consultation. Contact Maura@YourChiefSimplicityOfficer.com for details.