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April 14, 2008
Easy interruptions to eliminate
While you can't necessarily stop your colleagues from interrupting you, you can tell your tools not to. Start with email notifiers. It's nearly impossible for people to not notice email notifiers when they appear on your screen or make a sound. I created a 30 second video demo to show you how to turn off email notifiers in Outlook, which are set to alert you by default. DON'T WORRY -- email will still pour into your Inbox. It just means you won't get notified by Outlook every time a new email lands.
Nearly every email program has some kind of notify feature you can turn off. In Lotus Notes, it's under Tools>Preferences>User Preferences>Mail. Look for the When New Mail Arrives area to uncheck all of the ways it wants to notify you.
Posted by Kelly at April 14, 2008 02:16 PM
Comments
Alas, my boss fully expects that I see all email popups and be aware of them immediately. I am forced to use Outlook (and Windows) because of this. Avoiding interruptions, no such luck...
Posted by: K at April 14, 2008 03:52 PM
K--
Sorry to hear that, especially if it zaps your focus and productivity.
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at April 14, 2008 04:04 PM
I turned off my Gmail notifier two weeks ago so that I would no longer get beeped at when new messages arrived. Best productivity boost ever. Now I check email when I'm ready to and when I can set aside the time to deal with it--no more "emergencies" that are really just distractions better handled en masse when I have the opportunity.
Now if I could just get my phone to ring only when I'm ready and willing to answer it...
Posted by: RedMolly at April 14, 2008 04:12 PM
I only receive between 10-15 emails at work per day. My problem is the cellphone. I would like to turn it off and only answer questions a couple of times per day but I feel guilty about missing the calls.
Posted by: Barry at April 15, 2008 03:15 AM
Hi Barry
Would it help at all to have your voice mail message tell people when they can expect a call back from you? (within 30 min? 1 hour? 24 hours?) That might buy you some time and relieve some of the guilt of thinking you need to be always on and handling things as they show up.
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at April 15, 2008 08:13 AM
I go another step and only download email upon the click of a button.
In other words, I am unwilling to be distracted -- and manage that by only reading email when I actually have the time, attention and energy to respond.
Of course, there are those days when I am looking to get a response and check over and over again!
I know a company that has a similar policy of always answering the phone, and not having voice-mail. It ensures that no activity can safely be continued through completion without interruption.
Make any sense to you?
Posted by: Francis Wade at April 18, 2008 05:56 AM
Yes Francis. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Posted by: Kelly at April 23, 2008 08:23 AM
