Do you ever feel like interruptions are leading you through your day and you follow them like bread crumbs down a path from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm—or later—and before you know it the day is completely gone?
And did those interruptions bring new tasks that weren’t part of your original plan for the day, but you wanted to tackle them RIGHT away so you could get them OUT of your way?
Interruptions pose many threats, the least of which is the time lost to the interruption itself, which is only the beginning. Interruptions can cause a domino effect that can turn your day into a whirlwind of reactivity—or complete chaos. Either way, you might abandon your original plan for the day, which most likely will slow or stop your progress on the important tasks you needed to do.
At the end of a day like this, you’re probably more frustrated than feeling accomplished and more stressed out than feeling satisfied.
The Choices You Make Will Make or Break Your Productivity
A phone call is a good example of a typical interruption. This is the first fork in the road giving you two choices: pick it up or don’t pick it up?
At times when you’re committed to focusing on an important task for twenty or thirty minutes to finish it, you may decide NOT to pick up the phone so you can keep your focus and your progress going. At other times, when the task you’re working on is less critical, you may decide to pick up the phone. The most important point, however, is to understand that you DO have a choice. You DO NOT have to pick up the phone EVERY time it rings.
Let’s say, however, you decided to pick up the phone and the caller is a fellow employee in your company. In cases when there is NO action step resulting from a call, you’ve got it easy. You can simply get back to what you were doing, and the only cost to you is the time it took to talk with the caller and then refocus on what you were doing before you were interrupted.
If, however, there is an action step resulting from the call, you have a NEW choice to make and this is the second fork in the road—the one that will determine your level of reactivity.
Let’s say a caller asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, but you can find out and get back to them. It’s not urgent, but it’s important, and you can likely generate the answer today. However, you don’t know how long it will take to get the answer until after you take your first step and see how it unfolds.
After you hang up the phone, you have two choices:
- Will you take action NOW to get started with finding the answer and get back to the caller as soon as possible?
—OR—
- Will you add a task on your task list to address the question later after you finish what you were working on, and then call the person back after you get the answer?
The decision to make is about which task is more important: the task you were working on when you were interrupted or the task resulting from the interruption? And no matter the answer, a new question emerges: How will you track the task that has to wait?
If these questions are difficult to answer or the choices are difficult to make, it could be because you’re missing reliable systems and processes in your workday to support you. Without a reliable strategy for workload management, it’s understandable why you would feel frustrated and reactive, and why you’ll continue to experience an uphill battle with interruptions every time they show up.
Reason #1 for Reactivity: Mission Control is Missing
Let’s say you get off the phone and you really WANT to get back to what you were doing, because you KNOW it’s more important than the task resulting from the call. At the same time, however, you know that the NEW task may get lost in the shuffle on your desk or on yet another paper to-do list, and you don’t want to take that chance. So, to avoid forgetting about this new task, you opt to do it now. You think, better safe than sorry.
In this case, your choice is based on the fact that you don’t have a sure-fire, air-tight method for managing ALL of your tasks, which would give you full visibility of tasks and allow you to plan and prioritize consistently and accurately.
Absent a system like this, you choose to take care of a new task right away, rather than risk losing track of it in the chaos of your desk or your day.
This is where REACTIVITY comes into play. And it can continue throughout the day.
Reason #2 for Reactivity: You’re Overwhelmed
Let’s say you get off the phone and you’re so frantic you don’t know where to turn next. It’s been a hectic day in a crazy week and you don’t see things slowing down any time soon. All you know is that you’re stressed out and overwhelmed, so you decide to do the new task simply because it’s front and center.
Stress and overwhelm can easily diminish your ability to make decisions and can easily lead you to be reactive. Your focus is not as strong as it could be and your decision making capabilities drop considerably when you’re stressed out.
According to David Rock, author of Your Brain at Work, “…prioritizing is one of the brain’s most energy-hungry processes. After even just a few mental activities, you may not have the resources left to prioritize.”
Reactivity will surely take over when you’re stressed out and overwhelmed, and you don’t have a system to rely on or a steady process to follow for managing all of your responsibilities and making sure you’re spending your time on your MOST important tasks.
Reason #3 for Reactivity: You’ve Given Up Your Power to Prioritize
Let’s say you get off the phone and you simply put aside what you were working on to take care of the new task without question. Your belief is, “I have to do this task eventually anyway, so why not just do it right now?”
This third scenario is one of acquiescence and does a great deal of damage to your productivity and progress on meaningful work. If you consistently and automatically drop what you’re doing to take care of a task resulting from an interruption, you’re choosing to let other people and other circumstances drive your day for the majority of the time. But this should be the other way around, where special circumstances take you off track only once in a while.
This choice is a combination of scenarios #1 and #2, where you may have given up on finding the best way to manage tasks AND you’re stressed out and less able to make decisions.If you identify with this scenario, you’ve given up your power to plan and prioritize tasks.
First, you may not be fully aware of ALL of your tasks, which means you’re not able to compare those tasks and make the tough decisions required to know where your time is best spent. If you’re working on tasks that are NOT the best use of your time, you will slow your progress on the projects that matter the most to you, your department and your company.
Managing tasks on a “first come, first served” basis means you’re treating all tasks as equals—with no level of priority—but that’s a mistake. Those tasks are NOT all equal. Some are way more important than others, but you’re simply throwing your hands up in defeat and going with the flow, which will cost you later.
How to Switch from Reactivity to Proactivity
The main reason for working reactively is that reliable systems are insufficient or missing in your workday. You’re not clear about what you should be doing and why, so it’s easy to change direction if you’re not committed to one.
Systems for managing tasks, information and email are essential, but since the driver of your progress is task management, that should get your primary focus. There should be only ONE system for managing ACTION, which includes tasks, to-dos, reminders, follow-ups—anything that requires ACTION on your part. You also need reliable systems in which to store REFERENCE information you want to quickly find in the future.
To get started with creating a reliable system for managing tasks, document every task you can find into ONE centralized, digital Task List. And no, I don’t mean using the to-do app on your phone. Use a full-screen Task List on your computer that’s part of your email system, which should also include contacts, calendar and notes.
Include ALL tasks from ALL sources, no matter the source of the task or when you’ll take action.Break projects down into FIRST or NEXT action steps and be sure to make them the smallest step possible.
Once you’ve added every task you can find, you will have a complete inventory of tasks. Give each and every task a target date of action in the future (Hint: these are DO dates, not DUE dates!) and you will be able to prioritize immediately and make smart decisions about how to spend your time today and on future days.
When you have a central, digital task list to drive action on tasks and you have reliable systems for storing reference information, you’ll have the advantage you need to work more proactively and productively.
You’ll be able to make decisions much faster and easier about where to put NEW information and tasks as they appear throughout the day. You’ll be in a stronger position to plan and prioritize, and you can make really smart decisions about how to spend your time—before, during and after interruptions occur.
Plus, when you’re crystal clear about the most important tasks you need to accomplish from day to day, you’ll be far more apt to PROTECT your time from interruptions to get those tasks accomplished.
Then you’re sure to make PROGRESS—visible, tangible and REAL—which creates steady forward movement for you and your projects, and gives you a workday you can get excited about.
