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 as noted in a Fast Company article.
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.
Our workshop, “Goal Aligned Time,” provides many strategies to overcome this massive time sucker but a simple one to implement immediately is to 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
