Episode 23: Managing Daily Interruptions: Strategies for Staying Focused
ITUNES | SPOTIFY
It's no wonder we have trouble focusing and getting anything done during the day! The constant stream of emails, text messages, and pings is relentless forcing our days to be more reactive than proactive. But it's unrealistic to think you can just turn off all notifications. For many, being responsive to clients and colleagues is a part of the job. And as parents, being unavailable is too risky. What if your child is sick or there's an emergency? In this episode, Katelyn shares realistic strategies and tips for how to find a balance of focused time for the proactive projects and work that you need to do, while still being responsive to the interruptions that come in throughout the day.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
01:14 Different types of interruptions
02:19 The impact interruptions have on your day and how you feel
06:45 A realistic approach to managing interruptions
14:14 Practical tips to help reduce interruptions
17:04 Building a new habit that's less reactive
17:47 Get support with managing your time and interruptions
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode
Hello, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I'm so excited to be here with you , and talking about a topic that recently came up in a client coaching session. And I thought, as soon as we were finished, I have to bring this here. This is something that I know we think about and talk about a lot, but Let's really break it down, and I want to give you some tangible tips and strategies instead of just broad strokes, anecdotal advice.
And what I want to talk about is interruptions. The big category is interruptions and being interrupted in our day. Not necessarily, though this is a, Valuable topic and we could do another episode on this in the future, but not necessarily are our kids interrupting us. We all know what that is like to be trying to get dinner on the table, or I don't know, some household paperwork done or just a chore around the house and either the baby wakes up from the nap or is crying or your kids are just asking you why and all of these questions.
That's its own category of interruptions. But I want to talk today about the interruptions that we receive throughout our day, like a text message from a friend who maybe has a little bit more flexibility during the day or a less demanding schedule than you, and, is sending you updates or questions or just checking in.
Maybe an email that you get from your partner asking, Hey, what do we have going on this weekend? I'm curious if I can go to this thing or all of the chat messages, whether that's on teams or slack or whatever your office or company uses from,, a colleague wondering where do I find that PowerPoint presentation that you used for that client meeting two weeks ago?
It has become the status quo that our days are just constantly full of interruptions. It's like, I mean, the words that come to mind are ping pong and popcorn and shiny objects. It is a huge reason, though, of why you struggle to get things done. You start out your day with a plan. You have an idea of, I've got,, these meetings or these patients that I'm going to see, and then I'm going to work on this upcoming deadline that I have, or a presentation that I need to give, or this report that's due, or I just need to be sending some proactive outreach instead of always responding, and by mid morning, Your phone has filled up with text messages.
Your email inbox is full. Your team's chat has been just blinking non stop with all of these questions and comments and, hey, just wanted to let you know from your colleagues. And That's not even talking about the interruptions that we create for ourselves. Like, let's be honest and own up to those as well.
Where we pick up our phone and then suddenly we're scrolling on Instagram, or we are looking online at something that we potentially want to buy, or we're reading the news, or whatever it is. Those are certainly an added layer of interruptions, but I'm talking about the interruptions that happen to you.
Someone else in your life saying, Hey. I need to tell you something or ask you something. And after so many of those, it is extremely hard to get back to whatever your plan was in the first place, to regain a sense of focus and control of your time. At that point, it's probably. Much easier, or we tell ourselves it's much easier to just continue living in this reactive state.
That's where I am already. Might as well just continue being here. Might as well just live in my inbox, responding to everything that comes in, or just continue to text back and forth because I've already interrupted what I was doing. Might as well finish out the conversation. And in a sense, it feels like you're working.
It feels like you're doing something because you're pushing something out. Right? You're clearing it off your desk, so to speak. You're responding. You're answering the question. It's not something that you have to come back to and revisit later, which is a fair argument, and for some of you, that being responsive in that way, being available to a team, is a part of your job.
And I get that. There are so many jobs that I know I, I've had in my life and my clients have as well where being responsive in email or available to your team or responding to teams messages is a part of your job. But I would guess it's not your whole job, especially if those messages that you're responding to are maybe from your mom or your friend or your husband or partner.
And what happens on those days where we follow the interruptions, we allow ourselves to be in that reactive, responsive state because, well, I'm already here, might as well stay here. As we get to the end of the day, and one, we're tired, that takes a lot of energy to be reacting to and responding to everybody else's requests.
And so we're tired. But you also don't feel like you really accomplished anything. You did send emails, you did answer questions, but those weren't things that you necessarily came into your day wanting to do, that you chose to do. And so you start to wonder, like, what did I even do today?
And those projects or tasks or priorities that you had set out to do that live on your to do list or in your planner, they just get pushed to another day. And pretty soon, you have enough of those days where things just get pushed and pushed and pushed, or they carry over, and you start to feel so far behind that you have no idea where to even start.
What's the point? Now, we can't make people stop reaching out to us, as much as maybe that could be the quick fix here, just tell everybody I'm closed for business, stop contacting me, stop reaching out to me, that's not possible. But how can you manage the interruptions in a way that still allows you to have some focus, or allows you to complete the thing that you actually do need to get done, or want to get done?
That's what I want to help you with today. I think one of the most important reminders that I am constantly reminding myself of is that when someone is reaching out to you, whether they're sending you a text or they're calling you or emailing you or sending you that message, it's because it's convenient for them.
Your husband who is emailing you about your family's upcoming weekend availability. It's because it's top of mind for him. He got an invite and wants to be able to clear it off his desk to be able to say yes or no, I can attend. Or he's not very busy. And so he's doing a little bit calendar management or cleanup.
It's top of mind for him. So he's sending you the email right now, or your mom is calling you with a question about what to get. One of your kids for their upcoming birthday, it's top of mind for her. She doesn't want to forget. So in the moment, Oh, while, I'm thinking of it. Let me just call Katelyn and see, or your friend who wants to book that flight for, you know, your upcoming spring break trip that your families are taking together.
She just wants it off of her to do list. And she has a free moment in her day and thinks that you do too, but just because it's convenient for them. It doesn't mean it's convenient for you, and that's okay. That message can sit in your message inbox. The email can sit in your email inbox. The voicemail can sit there until you have time to listen to it.
It is possible for you to reply when it's convenient for you. I laugh about that quote that I'm sure I don't remember where I saw it, but, it's something along the lines of I'm at the age now where if you text me after 10 p. m., for example, I'll reply to you at 6 or 5 a. m. the next morning. I actually do that with my dad.
He's a night owl, and he does tend to send me late night texts, and I'm already asleep. It's fine. It will sit there, and I will reply to him when it's convenient for me in the morning. He won't be up that early. He'll respond later in the day when he's up and moving. Those people just want to send that question or that message to you because it's what they're thinking of.
It's a time that is slower for them. Or they just want to do it before they forget or clear it off their desk and put it into your queue. And for those instances where they do need an immediate response, I mean, it's always your choice to reply, but also if something is important or a priority for that day, then we should start to establish the practice of setting up some time in advance.
They could ask you to set aside time to review the calendar so that we know what upcoming weekends look like, or set aside a time to talk about birthday gift ideas, or to sit down together and book those flights when it works for both of us and we can be present in the moment and making a clear headed decision instead of just reacting in the moment.
And if you do want to pick up your phone and respond or reply to that email, as soon as it comes in, That's okay.
But I still want to encourage you to pause and remember that it's convenient for them. It's convenient for them right now, and then you can decide, is it also convenient for me? Or is it important enough for me that I'm willing to drop whatever it is I'm doing and reply?
I think there's also so much that we can do through our actions to teach people without saying it directly, but to teach people how we respond. To teach people what they can expect from us. I'm in a group coaching program right now. Where we get support via slack outside of our coaching sessions and my coach or one of the co coaches has taught us through her behavior that she replies to those messages.
almost always in the evening. She's in a different time zone. So it's in my evening. So if I post a question first thing in the morning, asking for some coaching, that's when it's convenient for me. That's when I'm sitting down at my desk and I have those thoughts and I want to get them over there. For consideration, I've learned though, over time and through her teaching me, that I shouldn't expect to see a response until later that night.
How quickly we respond is what we teach others. So if you have a pattern of responding to texts or emails or messages within minutes, your friends, your colleagues, your team, they know that you're always available. That you are a quick responder. You've taught them that. That's important. But here's the thing, you can also reteach them simply by slowly changing your behavior.
Now another really helpful reminder is to think about the time cost. We all know and have experienced how jumping from task to task costs you time. We think that we are great at multitasking and that's what we're doing, but really there's no such thing. It's a hard pill to swallow, but really there's no such thing.
All we're doing is constantly starting and restarting. Working on the project, pausing to pick up our phone, and then restarting on the project, reminding ourselves where we are, picking back up and getting going again, only to stop and pause to do something else. And I want you to consider how much time are you losing from picking up your phone, from checking your inbox, from opening up Teams because you see that a message has come in.
Now, some days. you aren't very focused. Maybe you didn't sleep well, you just don't quite have that motivation or energy. And those maybe aren't the days where you're going to be doing deep work. And so maybe you welcome those interruptions and distractions. And that is the day to just kind of live in your inbox and clean things out and be responsive.
But other days you have maybe a real deadline or something that you do need to get done or need to make progress on so that you're not scrambling at the last minute next week. That task is going to take you twice as long, at least twice as long. And it's going to continue to hang over your head when it's not done, if you are constantly allowing these interruptions.
You know what those days feel like, where you really wanted to make progress on that thing and you didn't. And you leave at the end of the day feeling defeated and frustrated and that carries over into your evening as well.
Those are the days where pausing and reminding yourself of how much time these interruptions cost is really important. Now there are all sorts of tricks that you, know about. I'm sure you know all of these, right? So I'll just quickly rattle them off, but things that you can do to reduce that sort of knee jerk reaction that we have when we hear the sound of a text message or an email, or a chat message come in.
You can silence your phone. You can turn it over on your desk or put it out of the room if you're on a really tight deadline. You can turn off notifications for new emails that come in or Instagram likes or I don't know, anything else that is a distraction for you. You can close your office door or put on headphones if you work in an open office space or put a sign on your door at home if you have a home office so that nobody comes in and bothers you.
You can put up an out of office message, even if it's just for a morning where you're heads down and focusing. You can put your chat tool on do not disturb. You've probably tried some or all of these to varying degree of success over the years.
And I know for parents in particular, it can be hard to think about not being available. Especially when we have kids, putting the phone on airplane mode or silent mode can be really challenging. We want to be available if there is an emergency. But can you start small? Can you start maybe with your inbox or your team's message, app or whatever messaging app you use in the workplace?
Can you start there? And can you start small? So maybe you let that chat message sit for five minutes while you finish up the email you're working on and then you go in and respond. Maybe you take a quick glance at your phone to make sure it's not the school or daycare calling and then you let it go to voicemail.
Or maybe you check your text messages on the half hour. I'm not even saying go a whole hour, but most things could wait for 30 minutes if needed. Start to lengthen your response time bit by bit between when it comes in and when you respond. It's like stretching a rubber band if you were to put a rubber band over your thumb and pointer finger and just slowly stretching it little by little.
So there's tension. It's a little uncomfortable. This is a new pattern for you, a new way of responding and reacting to things. But can you stretch it little by little? Not to the point where it's so far that it snaps, and you miss an actual emergency call or a fire at work, but just enough to allow you to finish what you're working on.
It will take practice. This is a new habit, especially if you are someone who is very quick to respond and react to incoming interruptions. But the more you do it, the more you teach other people what to expect from you, and the more you reclaim some of your time, right? This is a habit that could save you so much time, more than you probably realize, and can save you focus during your day.
It leads to more intention, to you being more in control and making the choice of when to respond. Making the choice to respond when it works for you, not just when it's convenient for someone else. This is one of the facets of time management that we're going to be learning more about in my group coaching program for working moms .
This group experience is focused on your relationship with time, how you plan and manage it, and how you can be more intentional with the time that you have to manage your time. Get the work and responsibilities that you need to get done, done, but also to use that time for the things that are important to you, like your relationships, your health, and your fun.
We are starting in January in the new year, and I would love to have you join us. You can learn more by filling out a quick, Form on my website at themothernurture. com forward slash interest. And I will be in touch with more details and to see if you could be a good fit. All right. Practice that new habit of pausing, reclaiming some of your time during your day, and I will talk to you in the next episode.
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