Impatience and Bad Planning: Working With Endless Interruptions and Distractions

in #work7 years ago

It'll probably take me several hours to write this post, even though it's not terribly complicated, and probably will require no background research.

The thing is... it's doubtful I'll have more than 90 contiguous seconds to actually write before something will "come up" that requires me to stop writing and focus elsewhere for a while, before returning to writing. 

Leaves
Fall leaves and snow

OK, so maybe "90 seconds" is an exaggeration... but it certainly feels that way, sometimes. For the sake of accuracy, five minutes is probably more truthful.

Even so, that's still not very long.

Creating My Own Reality

I'd like to blame the fact that I have a bad case of "Too Many Interests Syndrome," but it's a pretty thin excuse. I chose this life, when I chose to become self-employed.

I CREATED this reality.

And-- if I have to be completely honest-- I seldom worked for more than five minutes straight, even when I was part of Korporate Amerika. And I remember how much it annoyed me, at the time.

If you do anything at all that requires interaction with others, odds are you'll never have more than a few minutes before a "change of direction" is required.

Memory of an Old Friend: Work Ethics Across Cultures

MtBaker
Mount Baker at Sunrise

This post-- itself-- is a "distraction" that grew out of a different post I was writing (about productivity) which sent me down memory lane to some observations a friend once made.

He was actually a friend of my parents' who lived in Houston, Texas but was originally from Hamburg, Germany... and he was one of my "sponsors" when I came to the US to go to University, back in 1981. He was an oil company executive... and he pulled me aside-- at age 21-- and explained how work (then) in Europe and the US differed.

"The reason Americans have these 50-hour work weeks and no holidays," he explained "is that they spend as much time distracting themselves with TALKING and COMPLAINING about work as they do actually WORKING."

Of course that was a rather biased and harsh comment... but I discovered a certain level of truth in it, nonetheless.

Grass
Ornamental grass

Some years later, I found myself "getting friendly" with a woman who worked in the HR department for a local Fortune 500 IT company where I also did contract work... and she "confessed" that the company loved hiring Europeans because "they are convinced they are supposed to actually WORK every moment they are at work, so we get way more productivity out of them!"

Being Danish by birth and upbringing, I sort of related to that. And I related to the fact that I'd rather work 36 hours a week and get six weeks paid vacation from a company that OWNED me when I was at work, than be "at work" 50 hours a week and only get two weeks' vacation with the be "time wasting" being acceptable.

It all reminded me of another work-related "cultural truism" I'd heard: "Europeans complain about how MUCH work they have to do, Americans complain about how LONG they have to work.

Of course, this was in the 1980's.

Meanwhile, the Endless Interruptions Continue... Our "Instant On" society

Leaves
Leaves and water droplets

So now I work for myself, and I still live with endless interruptions... why?

In a nutshell, because we living in a culture where we have come to expect everything to be "instant," and around the clock.

When I sell something on eBay, it's not unheard of that the buyer will send me an email within an hour, asking me "When will you be shipping that out?" even though my terms clearly state "within 48 hours."

I'm often tempted to shoot back a snarky note along the lines of "I'm sorry your shipment is delayed because I'm wasting time answering your email, rather than packing and shipping purchases." 

But of course, I refrain...

But it still interrupts my flow... as do a million other things because nobody's willing to wait for the natural time of anything. OR they wait too long...

The Sign on the Wall

When I had my art gallery and gift store many years ago, we had a prominent sign on the wall that read "Bad Planning on Your Behalf Does Not Constitute an Emergency for ME!

Flowers
Flowers at our local farmer's market

Of course, nobody ever read it... and we still had a steady stream of people come in the store on December 23rd, wanting to know if we could mail something halfway across the world "by Christmas.

Well, whaddaya think?

Last time I checked, this particular holiday has happened on the same date every year for hundreds of years, so unless you were raised by wolves, it can't be a huge surprise to you that it's still on the same date this year... which you have known all year long.

Oh well...

In the meantime... it has now been three hours since I started this post...

What do YOU think? Do you live a life that feels like one long interruption? Or is your work schedule more settled? Do interruptions feel they get in the way of productivity? Do you think a lot of time is "wasted" while we are AT work, but not actually working? Leave a comment-- share your experiences and feedback-- join the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Published 20170712 15:10 PDT

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"Bad Planning on Your Behalf Does Not Constitute an Emergency for ME!" < I love this saying!! . . I used to use it all the time when I was asked to rush something by a coworker who procrastinated completion of a project. It's so true!

As I read your post, I found myself nodding in a agreement - I do get interrupted. BUT, when I really thought about it, I realized that most of my 'distractions' I allow!

There is a delicate balance between being 'on top of things' and permitting real focus. In 2015, I read that the more people get better at multi-tasking, the more they LOSE the ability to focus. This was SO true for me, because I couldn't focus on one thing for more than about 20 mins!

After reading that article, I decided to start practicing the art of focus. Forcing myself to check email and phone messages only a few times a day. I utilized the 'do not disturb' options on work platforms during my high-productivity times. All of these tactics helped and I'm pleased to say that I can truly focus for about about an hour before my brain drifts.

Perhaps more practice will yield longer times of focus - I can only hope.

@jannell, thanks for your thoughtful comment!

I was "doing Korporate Amerika" when multitasking became such a buzzword... and I was always thinking "what total bullshit this is!" I have basically rejected that idea as "real" pretty much since day one.

On the other hand, my mind is wired according to what our culture likes to call "ADHD" which means I can go two ways... endlessly distracted... or hyperfocus. When I am in hyperfocus mode, I can accomplish in three hours what most people do in three days. However, creating the condition that allows for that to happen is hard... I work from home, but even so... my wife has to be on an "away call" and I unplug the phone line and turn off the cell devices and deactivate all my notifications.

That allows me to be super effective in one aspect of my life... but everything else goes to hell. At the end, though, it leaves me wondering why our entire existence is set up in such a way that we never really get to be very effective at ANYthing.

Ooo - I hear ya on this one:

allows me to be super effective in one aspect of my life... but everything else goes to hell

Great post - so true

Here in New Zealand we often wonder what Americans do all day with their constant busyness (posting on fakebook?)

Love this line: "I'm sorry your shipment is delayed because I'm wasting time answering your email, rather than packing and shipping purchases."

We run an online business, but we just ignore any emails like that for 48 hours and thankfully we don't get many.

We also generally don't respond to anything involving cell phones. (I hate the damn things)

http://www.naturefoods.co.nz/

Life here in the US is "chunked small," compared to other places I have lived (Denmark, the UK, Spain, even the West Indies) in that people here process 100's of "little" pieces of information/work, rather than a smaller number of larger chunks.

Nice web site! I imagine your customers are probably a little more patient... here everyone wants things yesterday. And the cell phone thing? No thanks!

In NZ we are one of the few countries (three I think) that don't use E-bay - we have the far better Trade Me and when people receive their parcel within three days (from us they usually do) they are delighted.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/

Yeah, occasionally someone does manage to do a one-up on eBay and beat them at their own game.

@denmarkguy you've assimilated very well, and still managed to keep your work ethic. Congrats on that.

The reason Americans have these 50-hour work weeks and no holidays," he explained "is that they spend as much time distracting themselves with TALKING and COMPLAINING about work as they do actually WORKING.

That's still very true today.

When I was still in the workfarce, all I wanted was to be given my tasks and be left alone to do them.

I would just grind out the work and I usually managed to get things done in half the time it took my coworkers, which then left me time to loaf, waiting for them to catch up.

Oddly enough, I was the "not a team player" guy.

Now I work from home and my Wife or the kids or the dogs are the ones who demand instant attention.

I still prefer it.

In spite of the fact that I still work a lot with the endless distraction and interruption mindset, I'm really glad I turned to self-employment almost 20 years ago... I can't even imagine the "regular workforce" today, with yet another layer to technology (smartphones) to serve as a distraction.

I was never much of a team player, either... one of the reasons I never fared particularly well in the workplace.

The quality of my work was never an issue but I always seemed to get low marks on the "Culture" side of the equation in my "performance" reviews.

Ah yes... performance reviews. "Needs to work on tolerance of human frailties." HR-speak for "gets frustrated with people who can't figure out something they've been shown how to do 30 times, already."

One strategy to fight this is to only check email and social media twice per day, at 9am and 4pm or whatever.

It's so valuable to focus on one thing for at least an hour or two. For me not looking at email too often is essential to make that possible.

I get SO much more done in less time when I have the "luxury" of having blocks of time where I don't get interrupted. It's just a shame that that is considered a "luxury."

Well, whaddaya think? LOL I am also a self-employed individual plagued with many daily distractions. Steemit is one, but I welcome this one for its interactions. Since I'm home working, I find myself wandering off on a whim to do laundry, or organize something simply because my OCD kicked in and it was "just not where it belonged". My days kinda smear together with family time, me time, and work at any given hour of the day.

@steempowerpics... working from the house does have its distractions. Steemit works OK with my schedule because I can post a comment or two and then head back to what I was doing... I can also "justify" it better since it slowly adds to the "savings account" otherwise known as Steem Power... couldn't ever say that about Farcebook.

First, I should say that productivity and how to stay focused is among my favorite topics and you provoke me writing a post about what works for me.

Second, nice to see a fellow eBayer here. I have so much ridiculous stories for sharing.. :D... Yep, pretty impatient customers indeed..

Productivity... yes! There's a strange catch-22 in our lives at the moment. I'd love to move towards a place of being more productive and having more contiguous time to do actual work. Which requires us to pursue a horribly UNfocused path to achieve... because that's how the world is set up.

On the whole, eBay has been very very good to us... been doing that for about 20 years, in many different incarnations. But yeah, ridiculous impatient people!

No @denmarkguy. We won't give up. If Tim Ferris was able to make it, what the thing that may stop us.
It's not only him actually, a good amount of people has shared their workflows online and I'm regularly taking an advantage of the shared know how.

I was going to say that I know what does Arbejdsglæde means for a Dane.

Arbejdsglæde. There's a phrase I haven't come across in a while.

But I think that was perhaps what I was striving for, in choosing to become self-employed. The tricky part is the point (or "points") where my individual interaction with my environment intersects with a society that's NOT created as I have created my own life.

What's the solution then? To optimize that point to upgrade it in the right way. However, we shouldn't also forget that being able to mix well in that colorful society is a chance for us to improve other group of valuable skills lead by patience and understanding. Understanding the point of view of the person standing in front of you.

Really great article, I really relate to what you are saying. I think internet and being able to be connected 24 seven is both a blessing and a curse. Many people believe that multitasking is the way to solve and deflect all distractions coming at you, but I am not a believer of multitasking, you will be much more efficient doing one thing at a time and spending all your attention on it till you get it done .

We used to manage to get through life perfectly well at a time when we were NOT connected 24/7. I'm not convinced our current way of working is really an "improvement."

As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as "multitasking;" it's really just switching between tasks really quickly... and yet corporate America seems convinced it's "a thing."

I couldn't have said it better myself, multitasking is an illusion! I really want to practice my mindfulness, but I am like you I think, I have a hard time to sit still sometimes. What do you do to find calm in such a stressful environment?

I'm largely self-employed no, so it's not that much of an issue... at least not like to used to be. That said, "60-second meditations" have always worked well for me... pull up a peaceful landscape (usually my wallpaper) and "go there" for 60 seconds while being mindful of my breathing... and how it feels to be in that place.

Great idea, it's hard to come up with an excuse that on is too busy to spend 60 seconds on meditation, I will try this technique:)

Nice post. Good honest content and I love your markdown skills.
You inspire me to learn more :-)
I attempted something simular this morning, busted my tail but came up short hehe.
If you have the time LOL Here it is :-)
Cheers

Thanks @codypanama, appreciate the kind words. Truth be known, I'm an Olde Phart so I actually create all my posts directly in HTML, which is how the formatting you see comes to life.

I'll check out your post-- thanks for stopping by!

I literally work every second of my day when I'm at work! I often have to eat during sessions with students, which I hate to do, but I won't get to eat if I don't! There is always something that comes up that is unplanned, and quite often it's someone else's emergency that gets handed to me. I have stopped planning my days at work, because I found that it was a waste of time as my day plans itself for me!

@thesimplelife, the fact that you actually work all the time "at work" says a lot... and puts you ahead of 95% of the world. I'd say that I work most of the time, as well... but it's a process of endless task-switching that certainly gets things done, but I also know that it lowers my overall productivity. But some of that is just how my brain works. I'm "one of those" people you can give an impossibly huge and complex project... lock me in a room with it for three weeks, slide food under the door and otherwise leave me OUT of touch with the external world... and I'll do the best job EVER, and probably invent cold fusion from banana peels as a bonus side effect!

I really enjoyed this post. I laughed out loud at your proposed eBay response. That is 100 percent something I would say to someone

I don't actually end up sending them... but even writing them out and then deleting does help me burn off the steam!

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