I’ve read several studies over the years about interruptions in the workplace and how they affect our productivity. I, like many sales professionals, enjoyed the fast pace that interruptions created without knowing how much it was hurting my ability to get my key tasks done. All the studies point to the same thing — that the time it takes to handle the interruption isn’t the big time sucker — it’s the time it takes you to get back to the same level of focus and concentration. The estimates run from a low of 6 minutes to a high of 23 minutes.
If you are needing to focus on a task, let’s say, making prospecting calls, if you get interrupted even 1 time per hour, you are losing over 12 hours per week or over the course of a year, over 12 weeks of productivity! Crazy but true.
The nature of interruptions has changed largely since the introduction of the smart phone, mainly the iPhone, released in 2006 and the migration to WFH. People would have people interrupt them at the office often in person. “Hi Mike. Did you see the Leafs lose again last night?” Another 10 minutes down the drain! With most of us working from home a good chunk of the week, this isn’t as much of an issue but what has more than replaced people is the super computer in our hands, our phone. How many times does it buzz, ring or do something to cry out for your attention NOW? We do it to ourselves when we set notifications, reminders and reminders to set reminders.
Our workshop, “Goal Aligned Time,” provides many strategies to overcome this massive time sucker. I worked this week with a group on managing the endless email tsunami and while we covered many tactics, a simple one to implement immediately is to turn off your email notifications and do your emails in batches. Stack them up and plow through several at once rather than jumping on each one as it comes in.
Stop kidding yourself that “busy” means “productive”. Once you understand the vast difference between these terms, you’ll be able to watch your sales grow!
Michael