Let's talk about eliminating the interruptions in your daily work. The more interruptions you can eliminate, the more productive you'll be because they damage your focus and distract you from the main, most important thing you're doing. We will discuss how to eliminate interruptions from the devices around you, from chats, from the people around you, and even from ourselves.

The Myth of Multitasking

First, people think, "Oh, I can switch between tasks really well, no problem. I can multitask." There is no such thing. What people call multitasking is actually switching between tasks. Our brains do not parallel process. It just doesn't happen. We switch really well. It looks like almost simultaneous processing of tasks, but what's really happening is we're distracting ourselves from the current task with the next task, and so on. We switch great, but all these things have poor focus because we keep switching. None of them get truly great focus, and all of them get done to a lesser degree of quality.

If you have a million things on your plate, maybe that's the only way out, but you really should not be in that situation. You should not be putting yourself into that situation where you have a million things on your plate. That's just going to cause you burnout and stress. You want to protect yourself from those situations and not get into them. What you need to do is eliminate a lot of tasks so that you can give great singular focus to one most important thing at that time.

Handling Digital Interruptions

One of the things throughout our day that really interrupts us is all kinds of chat: Facebook chat, Gchat, instant messages, text messages, all kinds of alerts. What to do about that? Very easy. If it's an online chat, put the phone away and close your chat applications on the computer. Close out of Facebook, close out of Gchat, all that stuff. Very easy. Totally up to you. Sometimes we are our worst enemies by keeping that open. But now you know, so you just close all that. You can come back to all those and check for them on your breaks, which is okay. Not ideal, but okay. Because on your breaks, you really should refresh your mind. Spending more screen time is not the most ideal break, but it's okay. This will at least stop the interruptions that come from chat conversations.

Managing Interruptions from People

Regarding people, a lot of people will come into your physical space, your office space, or wherever you're working, and they're going to chat with you. Half of the time, it's because they're bored and they just need to waste their time and need some entertainment. You have to be a little selfish. There are a lot of professional excuses that I usually give. I say, "I'm sorry, I cannot chat. I'm preparing for a meeting. I'm preparing for a deadline. I'm really stressed out. I have a lot on my plate." Then you can tell them, "I can come to you when I'm done." In my mind, I laugh because I know, yeah, that's me saying, "I'm going to interrupt you at the time that's convenient for me." Not you interrupting me, just coming barging in.

But really what you can do is you can say, "I can't talk now, but I'd love to talk. If they're asking for help, I'd love to help you. Can we set up a time that works for both of us? Right now I've got all these pressures." Most of the time, people will completely understand.

There are also some body language techniques that you can try. For example, if you keep your hands on the keyboard of your computer as the person comes into your physical workspace, they get that subconscious hint that your attention is not on them. Most of the time, people get the hint. It's polite and professional. Most people will be fine with it.

Conclusion

If you start practicing this, and importantly from all three sources—disciplining yourself, managing devices, and eliminating interruptions from people—you will notice that the level of your focus and the amount you're getting done should increase. It seems like all these things are tiny interruptions, but there are many of them during the day. Each time they happen, it's like restarting your work. The more you can eliminate these interruptions, the more time will be left to work on the most important tasks, and you'll do those tasks better.