If You Want To Be Productive And Avoid Interruptions, You Must First Accept This Brutal Truth

You hate interruptions, especially if you're trying to focus on completing a complex task that requires sustained attention. Few things are more infuriating than having something happen that breaks your focus just as you begin to make real progress. You may have snapped at whoever interrupted you - I know that. But if you want to prevent interrupts from eating into your workflow, you must first accept this brutal truth: for most of us, the most destructive interrupts are the ones we allow, or even create. ourselves.

A few weeks ago, I decided to set aside a Friday to prepare for an international trip and a speaking engagement. As I began the work I needed to do, I heard the unmistakable sound of a notification coming from my desktop computer. I found myself paralyzed for about ten seconds, standing outside the door of my home office. I knew perfectly well that the right thing to do would be to complete the task I was working on and check my notification later, just as I knew that all my urgent work was in progress and that no matter what, it could certainly wait an hour. until I get there.

As someone who spends a lot of time writing about productivity, I knew how insane it was to drop what I was doing halfway through and go read this notification. And yet, I couldn't help it - that's exactly what I did. The thing is, when it comes to interrupts, I'm my own worst enemy, although I should know that. I'm willing to bet you are too.

It's very, very hard to break the habit of self-interrupting. Here are some tactics that can help.

1. Technology brings interruptions. Instead, use it to limit them.

When I got up from my desk that day, it would have been so simple to press the disable key on my keyboard and stop the stream of ringtones and other sounds that signal incoming messages on the different platforms people use to join me. I could have enabled Focus Assist to turn off most notifications and set my smartphone to Do Not Disturb. Any of these steps would have removed the temptation to interrupt me and go read this post.

Of course, there are real emergencies. If you have a school-aged child, for example, you want the school to be able to reach you right away. But you can use the technology to set up a special notification sound or other alert for those few really urgent messages, allowing you to safely ignore others until you're ready to read them. p>

2. Wait ten seconds.

When you receive a notification, your automatic reaction may be to stop what you're doing and watch it. Try entering this autopilot response by stopping, putting down your phone or other device, and counting ten seconds.

After the ten seconds are up, take a deep breath and ask yourself, "Why now?" You will most likely reach a natural breaking point in your task within the next 30-45 minutes. Does the notification you received really need your attention now and not in 45 minutes? What would be the consequences of waiting those few minutes while you finish what you're trying to focus on? And what would be the consequences if you didn't complete your current task, or didn't do it well, because of too many self-interrupts?

3. Schedule work time blocks and break times.

I'm a fan of the Pomodoro technique, which requires 25 minutes of practice followed by a five-minute break. That makes a lot of sense, given that research suggests most adults can sustain their attention for about 20 minutes at a time. For me, the beauty of this approach is that if I'm, say, halfway through a 25-minute work session and I feel a burning desire to check my email, I can often persuade myself to wait 12 1/2 minutes until the next official break. The worst interruptions are the ones we impose on ourselves, and using such a system can help you relegate those self-interruptions to pause times where they will do less harm.

4. Look out the window (and place your phone across the room).

As you work, your attention will inevitably wander; this is how the human brain works. Problems arise, however, when your brain searches for a distraction and lands on something really absorbing...