Working from home through Covid-19 has brought to the forefront a new set of work distractions throughout the day. You may no longer have coworkers walking to your desk asking questions, but you may have home schooling, infants, pets, a partner working nearby and coworkers reaching out to you virtually with questions. Add this to the ability to bounce between meetings almost instantaneously (thanks to Zoom, Teams, etc) and it can lead to a crazy work week. How can you keep up with your workload with all these distractions?
Every time you get interrupted, regardless what it is, how it is affecting your productivity? A study from the University of California Irvine found that, on average, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to a task after being distracted. This can really add up throughout the day, let alone the year if you think about how often interruptions occur.
The study reviews that the type of interruption may change this distraction time. If a disruption is like your current task, it could be beneficial, whereas if the topic is vastly different it could be even more disruptive. For the architectural profession, one example that most relates is when a young professional need to ask a project manager or principal a question. For the young professional, they want to ask right away to stay on task.
However, for the project manager that often juggles more projects more than likely is not working on that specific project, let alone doing that type of work. The question may be related to ADA requirements while the project manager is working on project fees for another project. For the young professional, the question is more beneficial, and they can get right back to work. For the project manager, the question is
so different from what they are working on that it may take them longer to refocus on their work. But these disruptions, COVID or not, still occur throughout the workday. How do you reduce the number of distractions?
Advice for the Young Architect:
Learn to make a list of questions as they come up. That way when you approach someone else with questions, you have a list that can be a long meeting rather than 5 minutes.
If you are sitting next to a project team member and know you are working on similar tasks, understand how that team member works. Based on the study, you theoretically could ask questions as they arise, but everyone is different. Simply ask initially if it’s okay to throw out questions as you work. This could be beneficial if a group of team members work adjacent to each other.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. There is never a stupid question, and it’s always better to ask. Don’t get impatient and go down the rabbit hole trying to figure something out that you don’t know enough about to do so. Know what you don’t know and wait for an answer or direction from more experienced staff.
Mid-Career Architect:
If you are always having staff stopping by to ask questions consider working in an alternate location. It can break up the day and make it a bit harder for someone to find you when you are trying to tackle heads down work. If your office doesn’t have set workstations and is more agile, make sure you have a quiet zone. This helps to signal to your coworkers you have heads down work that you need to focus on.
Schedule focus time and/or set chat status to “Do not disturb”. It’s helpful to block out focus time most days of the week. By blocking this time, colleagues will not automatically schedule meetings during that time without reaching out to you. It may add another step for planning meetings, but it makes sure you have dedicated time to get your own work done.
What to do when you have those weird 30-minute gaps between meetings? How often is your day broken up with this chunk of time where it is not enough to get your head wrapped around a substantial task? Besides taking care of yourself, you could use time as an opportunity to check in of team members and if they have questions. This could help reduce the number of distractions during larger time frames where you can get other tasks done.
If you have a young professional that is right out of school or someone that needs more of a guiding hand, schedule time for them. Whether it is a daily 15-minute discussion, or a weekly check in, it all depends on the person, project scope, and time available. But by scheduling this time it helps your team member(s) understand to gather questions to review for that meeting. Understand how you work. Are there times of the day that you are better at certain tasks? Schedule it!
For example, I’m more in a writing mindset first thing in the morning while I am still drinking my morning coffee. So I try to plan on doing minutes, narratives, specifications, and other larger writing tasks for that timeframe. And saving design thinking and collaboration for later in the day. If I need to reach out to a mentor, I find those the most inspirational and motivating at the end of the day. IF you have the power to decide when to schedule meetings and tasks, understanding yourself can be helpful.
Overall, it is important to understand what disruptions occur throughout the day and how it is affecting your time management. Something that causes stress now may be fixed through being a bit more strategic when these disruptions occur. Nothing is perfect, and we will always have distractions in our work life. Sometimes we need to create our own disruption. It’s healthy and productive to occasionally walk away and take breaks. It recharges you and gives your mind a break.
Stuck on a design, go take a walk to grab a cup of coffee. Having trouble focusing on one task, try to get something else done first instead. (That is if it’s not on a critical deadline fast approaching.) These types of micro breaks may be a distraction but also helps you to reset. During COVID, if I have a weird 10-15 minutes between meetings, I may play with my dogs real quick. It’s a way to reset, move around, and break up the workday.
I challenge all of you to look at your typical workday. Are there ways to reduce your stress and distractions? What type of distractions do you have? Do you need to mute Teams/IM conversations for a bit? Do you have weird 15-30 minutes gaps in the day that you don’t know what to do with?
Written by
Katelyn Rossier, AIA, LSSBB
Resources
Take Micro Breaks to Reset Your Focus
This Is Nuts: It Takes Nearly 30 Minutes to Refocus After You Get Distracted