Taming One of the Worst Office Productivity Killers.

• Author: Kavanagh, Shayne
• Position: INTERRUPTIONS

In today's workplace, technology has essentially reduced the cost of communication to zero. And while there are many benefits to more open communication, there is also a cost: We experience more interruptions during the workday.

One inquiry into workplace interruptions found the following: (1)

* The average worker experiences seven interruptions per hour.

* They spend about five minutes dealing with the typical interruption.

* About 80 percent of these interruptions were described as adding little or no value.

This means that many people are spending up to three hours a day dealing with not very useful interruptions. GFOA members seem to agree--more than a quarter of respondents to a GFOA poll rated interruptions as the most annoying source of lost time at work, putting them at No. 2 on the list. [Meetings were No. 1.]

Saying that people spend up to three hours a day on interruptions understates the problem, though. Because interruptions occur at unpredictable times, we are constantly forced to break concentration to deal with them. Because it can take up to 25 minutes to reach full concentration and get into the flow of a task, (2) some people maybe spending their entire workday in a chronically distracted state, never reaching full concentration. Academic studies show the insidious implications of chronic distraction, finding that students who are regularly distracted have significantly lower GPAs and exam scores than more focused students. (3)

We can assume that chronic distraction will not produce better results in the office than it does in the classroom. This is a problem for public finance officers because much public finance work, such as preparing budgets, forecasts, and month- and year-end closings, requires concentration.

One might think that the solution to this problem is to get better at multitasking. However, people are not actually capable of true multitasking--that is, working on several things at the same time. Instead, when we think we're multitasking, we're in fact rapidly switching our attention among different tasks. As we saw earlier, it takes time to ramp up to full concentration, so shifting attention rapidly is little or no better than chronic distraction. In fact, research shows that multitasking could reduce productivity by up to 40 percent! (4) In a particularly cruel twist, people who think they are good multitaskers and who multitask often are worse at it than people who spend more time in a focused state. (5) People who focus have trained their brains to operate at their most efficient level. Multitaskers are training themselves to be constantly distracted, with its consequent effects on cognitive ability.

The solution, then, is to limit interruptions to provide more time for focused work. This will not be easy, but fortunately, research has provided us with insights on how to limit interruptions. Before we get into strategies, though, we need to recognize two distinct types of interruptions because the strategies dealing with each are distinct.

The first is interruption by people, such as when a coworker calls us or comes to our workspace for a spontaneous conversation. This is probably the most obvious source of interruption for many of us. The second is interruption by technology. This is when we are distracted by notifications from our computer or smartphone, or even when we spontaneously interrupt our own workflow to check messages or visit a favorite social media application. Now, let's see how to deal with these two types of interruptions.

Interruptions by people

The healthcare field offers illuminating insight about the impact of interruptions. In a hospital, nurses are responsible for administering medications to patients, and they are regularly interrupted during this task by doctors or other nurses who want their attention. To illustrate, one study showed that almost all the 56 medication events the researchers observed were interrupted, and there were almost two interruptions per event. (6) These interruptions induce errors. The same study showed that a little more than one-third of the interrupted medication events had at least one procedural failure. This can be quite serious, as the patient could get the wrong dosage or even the wrong medication. Because these interruptions are literally a matter of life or death, the medical field has put a lot of thought into interventions to eliminate or mitigate interruptions, which we describe below. (7) The results have been impressive--one study showed that a single intervention reduced error rates by 20 percent to almost 50 percent. (8) If these interventions work in a hectic hospital setting, it stands to reason that they could work in a public finance office as well.

STAFF EDUCATION. Many people simply may not be aware of the serious consequences interruptions and distractions have for productivity. For example, recall that multitasking is a myth, yet many people still try to do it, and some even believe they are good at it. Consider sharing this article with your colleagues and having a conversation about what you all can do together to reduce interruptions. F urthermore, if your colleagues are aware of the consequences of interruptions, they are more likely to see your attempts to avoid interruptions as a well-meaning attempt to be productive and not as anti-social.

PHYSICAL SPACES THAT ARE NO-INTERRUPTION

ZONES. Designate a certain part of the office as a no-interruption zone and allow staff to relocate there whenever they need to concentrate on a critical task. Ideally, the no-interruption zone should be a private office, as people in cubicles tend to get almost one-third more interruptions. (9)

If your office does not have the space for a no-interruption zone, consider if an offsite location can be substituted. For example, perhaps a space at the local library can be used when intense focus is needed, or a work-from-home option could be provided. Another option could be...