DEALING WITH DISTRACTIONS
ties’ recognised as subtle clues to the reality that the role will be riddled with interruptions and distractions. Somehow you will need to manage them or muster con- structive change. A useful exercise is to spend two days ‘auditing’ your
daily routine, noting the interruptions that occur and the time required to deal with them. Having performed this exercise myself, I realise my largest ‘time thief’ was the telephone. I was amazed to find that even though I was- n’t conscious of spending a great amount of time on the phone, the average call lasted more than 12 minutes. In each instance, I had to stop what I was doing, take the call and then restart the task in hand by backtracking. Another epiphany was that most of those calls could
have waited. Not one of them was urgent, furthermore I allowed the caller to engage in casual conversation, which ultimately was at my own expense. Now, if I am working on something that requires con-
centration, I divert the phone so I don’t hear it ring, as well as keep my mobile off (not on silent). When I stop for a break, I do my phone messages all at once. This has cer- tainly given me back some very handy hours in each day!
The good, the bad and the deadly Not all interruptions are detrimental. For example, they provide respite from tedious tasks, which is essential for juggling the work/life balance, connecting and building relationships, getting priorities back on track or just offering support and guidance to others. The issue comes down to the quantity and frequency of the interruptions and the outcomes that you subse- quently have to live with. If the daily juggling of stopping and starting, flipping and flapping, turning off and on, engaging and disengaging and tuning out and in can all be mastered without a stressful outcome... congratulations! For most of us mere mortals, that’s a tall order.
is to spend two days ‘auditing’ your daily routines, noting the interruptions that occur and the time required to deal with them. Having performed this exercise myself, I realise my largest ‘time thief’ was the telephone
“A useful exercise ”
Persistent and consistent interruptions in a work environ- ment have a knack of taking ‘order’ and converting it to ‘disorder’ – and even disarray and distress in some cases. However, that is life in the real world. PAs are quin- tessentially highly effective multi-taskers, great commu- nicators, diplomats and negotiators. For the most part, the daily juggling of priorities, the cut and thrust of the battle of managers for a PA’s time and the relentless ‘you’ve got mail’ ding have been mastered effectively. Working late or on weekends, coming into work early to catch up, taking work home or just feeling the pressure are indicators that something is out of whack.
The quick fix! We are living with a glut of emails. Be ruthless and slash any unnecessary email senders. Unsubscribe from all non-essential sources. Make the ‘delete’ key your best friend and try not to revisit an email – by doing some- thing with it or discarding the unwanted email. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’, but, offer options... Ask about the urgency and the timeframe, negotiate, explain your other pending items, suggest a time slot you could manage or just be extremely pleasant yet firm in manag- ing the outcome. Here are three top tips from an EA of a large account- ing practice for dealing with distractions:
■ Take notes of instructions given (particularly useful if interrupted with another instruction).
■ Set a goal timeline for the day of tasks to be achieved, bearing in mind that you will always be interrupted with other jobs that take priority. Carry forward to the next day’s timeline tasks not completed.
■ Continually prioritise your tasks throughout the day.
And there are more quick tips you can implement in the office to reduce the number of interruptions you face. Turn off ‘distracters’ for one to two hour blocks each day, such as your mobile, office phone or email; key in names into the phone so that you can screen phone calls, it is far better to call back when you can give them your undivided attention; stay on task and manage tech- nology around you; muster self discipline in your own habits and possible ‘addictions’; and use down time to be proactive with mundane and administrative tasks.
The usual suspects. In an interruption culture, the serial ‘office interrupt-ee’ who is oblivious to the fact they disturb everyone con- stantly is quite common. This could be something as seemingly harmless as thinking out loud or talking on the phone loud enough that it breaks your concentration – or it could be someone who regularly involves you in their own work and issues. Then there’s the office ‘nice guy who loves a chat’. Of course chatting with colleagues is all part and parcel of working in a team but you’ll know when it’s eating away at your valuable time and when it’s a welcome distraction. The choices are to learn to live with it or gently
‘retrain’ people who constantly interrupt you with inap- propriate intrusions to respect your parameters and be sensitive to your need for privacy and time. A senior PA for a large Telco articulated her frustra- tion with the ‘Interruption Code of Conduct’ (her termi- nology) by expressing that she had often daydreamed of creating a barbed wire blockade around her workstation, complete with a fierce Doberman by her side and a water pistol in her top drawer! So when there is urgent work to be done, here are some helpful hints:
■ Politely decline any superfluous conversation, explaining you are on a deadline and offer another time (lunch, coffee) for a decent catch-up.
■ Develop a ‘do not disturb’ non-verbal demeanour, i.e. try not to make eye contact with passers-by, face your back to the general office, do not smile and remain a facial expression of intense focus and concentration. Chances are you won’t need that Doberman.
■ If social media is ‘your thing’ and the little refresher helps you get through the day, for one week only monitor how much you use it. To-ing and fro-ing back and forth with Facebook has recently been referred to anecdotally as being responsible for a significant underperformance in high school students who were regular users.
Managing an environment full of interruptions at
work is about both priority and people management. The best person to assess how you are managing your out- comes and how you feel at the end of each working day is yourself. Getting the mix right with sound self-man- agement principles will ensure your professional life is not robotic, or chaotic. E
www.executivepa.com » Oct/Nov 2010 » 43
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