Interruptions have always been a reality of work, as meetings, text or chat messages, emails, and conversations with coworkers endlessly fragment our time and thus our attention. As the Covid-19 global pandemic forced many of us to work from home, the concurrent management of work/non-work responsibilities have added to this already fragmented time. In our recent survey of 202 working professionals, conducted prior to Covid-19, 40% of the respondents reported experiencing more than 10 interruptions per day, with 15% reporting more than 20 interruptions a day. Research across several other surveys suggest that employees — from IT professionals to health care providers — are interrupted every six to 12 minutes. If interruptions are so frequent and seemingly unavoidable, how do they affect our work and what can we do about them?
A Plan for Managing (Constant) Interruptions at Work
Interruptions are a fact of organizational life and endlessly fragment our time and thus our attention. Our brains find it difficult to switch attention between tasks; more often than not, part of our attention stays focused on the interrupted task and does not fully switch to the interrupting demand — a term coined attention residue. Consequently, we perform interrupting tasks with only part of our cognitive resources and risk performing them poorly. So what can we do about it? Research shows that a simple intervention known as a “Ready-to-Resume” plan can help. Next time someone interrupts you, take a few seconds to note where you are on the interrupted task and what you want to do and focus on upon return. This action provides your brain the cognitive closure it needs to reduce attention residue so you can be more present and perform at your best.