Interruptions Cause Lost Productivity

I was reviewing some of my RSS feeds this weekend and came across a timely article by Kelly Forrister at Simply GTD that discusses the topic of “Dealing with Disruptions.” I have been having a number of conversations lately on this topic since the IT world is wrought with disruptions, emergencies, and burning issues.

Kelly addresses this topic from the GTD Practitioners perspective by suggesting that you:

• Carry a notepad to take notes of requests and disruptions.
• Ask people to send you an e-mail so you can process the issues later.
• Perform a Mindsweep at least weekly (I prefer the term Brain Dump) to collect and tie together loose ends.
• Make sure you have a physical inbox to collect the paper and actions from the physical world.
• Take yourself offline. If you can’t say no to disruptions avoid them.

Many of the conversation that I have had recently have centered on a Service Desk implementation that we have underway. A common complaint among IT staff is that people disrupt the project work and nothing gets done. I have become proponent of establishing an e-mail oriented process that ensure rapid response AND allow us to control our time. Every disruption takes away from my staff ability to manage their time and be effective.

The most critical issues in my experience with dealing with disruptions is having a process that works and provides results. First, if you are going to ask somebody to follow a different process, like send an e-mail, you need to show them that they will get result that are promised from the new process. Next, you have to retrain them to understand they will not get the expected results from the old process (i.e. if you immediately react to disruptions you will always be disrupted). When you start to make the transition the most difficult challenge will be to get the requester to trust the new process and accept that you aren’t just “blowing them off.”

Disruptions are probably one of the most challenging issues that one can face related to their own productivity since the requester has taken control of their time. It is important to regain control of your time if you plan to regain control of your productivity.