I’m sure you can relate to this scenario. You walk into work at 9am with a mile long to-do list and are determined to get it all done. You answer a few emails, talk to a few people, start a project or two, and the next thing you know it’s 6pm and you haven’t crossed anything off your list. You’ve been working hard all day and can’t understand how the time went by so fast and why you haven’t accomplished more.
As I’ve transitioned into a new position at my company, I’ve had a lot more work and responsibility on my plate. My days are longer and busier and I can’t afford to waste any time or have unproductive days. I’ve noticed that it’s usually the same few distractions and the same mistakes that drain a lot of my time and energy. Here are seven common time sucks that I’ve noticed in my own work life and how to handle them to prevent workplace distractions from interrupting your productivity.
1. The Time Suck: Emails
Email used to be something you only received on your computer and that you would check when you had the time. These days most people are constantly available by email. It comes to our phones, iPads, and almost every form of technology we own. Now people are available 24 hours a day and expected to respond quicker than ever. It’s supposed to make life easier to be so easily reachable, but studies have shown that emails can increase a worker’s stress level by 83%! Now imagine how many times a day you receive an influx of emails. That’s how many times a day your stress level increases by 83%! No wonder so many of us ends the workday feeling so crazed! Not only that, but every time you answer an email, it distracts you from your current task. Constantly shifting gears from task-to-task can be a huge time suck.
How To Handle: Turn off your auto notifications
Instead of checking your email every few minutes and getting distracted from what you are doing, set aside blocks of time in your schedule specifically to answer emails. For example, 15 minutes at the top of every hour. If it takes five minutes of less to answer an email, do it right then. It doubles your stress level and wastes your time to read an email and then read it again later to answer it. Once you answer an email, organize it into a file within your inbox so you can easily find it again later. This will help save you time in the future in case you need to find an email. Have a file for emails that take longer than five minutes to answer and schedule a large block of time once a day to attend to the time-consuming emails.
2. The Time Suck: Pop In Questions
Studies have shown that it takes the average person 2-10 minutes to recover from an interruption. If someone pops into your office just 2 times an hour to ask you a random question that can add up to 160 minutes of time wasted a day just to get back on task!
How To Handle: Schedule in times of unavailability
It’s important to be available, helpful, and approachable at work, so a closed-door policy may not be the best idea. However, you should set at least an hour a day where your door is closed to signal that you’re busy. That’s a good chunk of time to be able to work uninterrupted but not so long that you are deemed as unhelpful. You can also go to work an hour earlier or stay an hour later when the office will be quieter and less distracting. If people come by to ask questions during a time that’s incredibly stressful and busy for you, give them another specific time that you can be available to meet, give them your full attention, and answer all their questions. This way you won’t feel guilty about turning them away and you’ll be able to give others the time and attention they deserve, without killing your own schedule.
3. The Time Suck: Being Really Busy
Many of us spend our work-day being really busy. We constantly have something to do and our to-do list never seems to end. But how much of that work is actually productive and how much of it is just busy-work that consumes our time and energy but doesn’t actually get us anywhere? Busy work is kind of like being on a hamster wheel, you keep running and running but never actually get anywhere.
How To Handle: Keep your eye on the prize
What exactly do you need to do to accomplish the bigger goal? Focus on that. If the busy work helps you get to your goal, then don’t underestimate its value. By recognizing how to it contributes to the bigger picture you will feel less annoyed about having to do it. But a lot of the time you might find that you spend time doing things that have no significance to your work. If so, try to find a way to delete it all together (if it’s possible that it’s not actually necessary) or see if you can delegate it to someone else.
If you find yourself being overworked and overwhelmed all the time and there’s absolutely nothing you can take off your plate, try re-framing it. Instead of telling yourself that you’re so stressed out and busy (making the situation even bigger in your head) try telling yourself that you’re a master at handling multiple projects and time management.
4. The Time Suck: A chaotic desk
Different files, half-finished projects, post-its…if you have a lot going on, most likely you also have a cluttered desk. While a messy desk doesn’t seem too problematic, it can be a huge time waste.
A study from Price Waterhouse Coopers found the following things:
- “The average desk worker has 36 hours worth of work on their desk and wastes up to 3 hours a week just “looking” for STUFF!”
- “7.5% of all documents get lost and 3% get misfiled.”
- “Professionals spend 5 to 15% of their time reading information, but up to 50% looking for it!”
Not only does looking for various papers waste a lot of your time, but having so many different projects on your desk can be a huge distraction and keep you from being able to focus on the task at hand.
How to Handle: Mini spurts of organization
Staying organized doesn’t have to be a huge project. There are little things you can do to keep your desk clutter-free:
- When you are done working on a project, even if it’s not finished, put it away.
- Throw away old post-its.
- Every day before you leave, trash unneeded papers and file away important docs.
- Put things that you’ll need to work on first thing the next day in a “must-do” file. You’ll come back to work the next day feeling calmer not having to see all of that stuff on your desk.
- On Monday mornings, start the week off with a blank slate by running a sanitizing wipe all across your desk and keyboard.
- On Friday afternoons do a deeper cleaning by going through your desk drawer and throwing out all the unnecessary junk that gets collected in there.
5. The Time Suck: Not being able to focus
Have you ever had a day where you’re just staring at your computer screen but can’t get anything done? You find your mind jumping from project to project, but you can’t focus long enough to do anything productive. It’s extremely frustrating when you have tons of work to do but you just can’t concentrate on any of it.
How to Handle: You may need a quick break.
Take a few moments to breathe, take a quick walk outside, or even have a quick and fun conversation with a co-worker unrelated to work. You’ll go back to your work feeling reenergized. Have slightly more time? Pop out on your lunch break for a yoga class. You’d be amazed with the new sense of clarity you’ll come back with.
6. The Time Suck: Being a perfectionist
Attention to detail is usually important. Sometimes it can make or break a project. However it can also drain a lot of your time and mental energy. If you ever find yourself focusing on the smallest detail (like um painting the electrical outlets because they don’t match the walls) you might be spending too much energy on the wrong things. I know in that moment those little details can seem like the most important thing. The problem is, that tons of little details can add up consuming your whole day and by the time you’re done with the little things there’s no energy left for the big ones.
How to Handle: Learn when to let go
Sometimes you just need to let go. If you notice yourself getting caught up in details, take a moment to step back, take a break, and then go back to it with fresh eyes. Ask yourself: Will anyone besides me even notice this? What positives will come from me attending to this? What negatives will occur if I let it go? Are the positives worth the amount and time spent?
7. The Time Suck: Multi-tasking
I’m definitely (still) guilty of this. I almost always eat while I work and am usually working on at least 2-3 projects at the exact same time. Just this week I caught myself answering emails, talking on the phone, writing a report, listening to a podcast, and trying to eat my lunch all at the same time. It might feel productive to do so many things at once, but it’s really not because your attention isn’t fully on any of them.
How to Handle: Do one thing at a time
Try this experiment. For a whole day only do one thing at a time. Be fully focused and present on what you’re doing. You’ll be surprised; you might actually get it done faster and feel a lot less frazzled afterwards. Another experiment to try: each hour focus on only attending to one task at a time. Pick only one client or project and work on only that for an entire hour (or few hours!) You might find that you will get your work done faster. Often times people transition quickly in between projects and lose valuable time as they have to keep shifting their focus. Make it easier on yourself by scheduling whole blocks of time where you concentrate on tasks relevant to only one thing
From: Live It!