I am a fan of Cal Newport's book, Deep Work - Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, but, I often find it difficult to pick-up where I left off when my Deep Work session is interrupted. I am even interrupted by another interruption before finishing the task of the first interruption!
When I get back to my original Deep Work, a day or week later, I find I have completely lost the plot and have no idea of what I was up to, and sometimes what I was trying to achieve. Damn! Throw the hands up in despair, and I think I hear Netflix calling!
Do you often get interrupted at work? Well, I have found a new "Tiny Habit", another book I highly recommend Tiny Habits - The Small Changes That Change Everything
thank you, BJ Fogg, which has saved my work sanity, so I want to share with you, too.
This solution comes from Sophie Leroy, an assistant professor in the UW Bothell School of Business, who tells us, "If you have attention residue, you are operating with part of your cognitive resources being busy.
Attention residue has a wide range of impacts. In essence, you might not be as efficient in your work; you might not be as good a listener, you may get overwhelmed more easily, you might make errors, or struggle with decisions and your ability to process information."
But, what I like best, is when I resume my interrupted Deep Work session, there is my "Resume Plan", telling me where I left off, what I was doing when I stopped, and my next action. Brilliant!
And having too many Windows open in our brains, makes it hard to focus on the intervening work. I am still thinking about Task A while trying to do Task B; and I don't have (and either do you) the cognitive capacity to process those two tasks at the same time and do a perfect job on both tasks, it's not cognitively possible.
Working in this way, Sophie suggests, "others will come to understand that you need a minute to gather your thoughts before turning your attention to the interrupting task."
Additionally, we help the person who interrupts us because we will be more present in that interaction, and our input will be of higher quality.
Tags: Resilience at Work Workplace Wellbeing Wellbeing PERMAH Accomplishment |