I recently found an interesting study on office interruptions. Usually called distractions, these interruptions were researched from various angles, including but not limited to: What caused them (external or internal?), How many were there, and How long it took to get back on task.
What caused them?
The study found that most people suffered from both internal and external interruptions. While most managers are primarily victims of external interruptions, the average worker distracts him/herself almost as much as others do!
How many were there?
The average worker had an interruptions/distraction every 3 minutes. Yikes.
How long did it take to get back on task?
When you’re interrupted, you don’t immediately go back to the task you were doing before you were interrupted. There are about two intervening tasks before you go back to your original task, so it takes more effort to reorient back to the original task. Also, interruptions change the physical environment. For example, someone has asked you for information and you have opened new windows on your desktop, or people have given you papers that are now arranged on your desk. So often the physical layout of your environment has changed, and it’s harder to reconstruct where you were. So there’s a cognitive cost to an interruption.
Interruptions are sometimes necessary, but they always derail productivity for the interrupted party.
As a manager, that may not be the best of news on any front. The bottom line is that Average Worker is surrounded by interruptions caused by others and by self. It’s difficult to control for internal interruptions, such as email checking, but you can control for external interruptions. It’s not inevitable that your employees have to be held captive by others and their noise. A more recent development has been the use of office sound masking, the use of low-level white noise to cover office noise (i.e. unnecessary interruptions and distractions). The result is less distraction, more focus, fewer errors, and lower stress levels.
An effective manager doesn’t micromanage every detail. On the other hand, (s)he does provide a productivity-friendly environment. You don’t need to worry about every moment lost to interruptions- in fact, some of them are quite necessary to every day productivity (such as an employee seeking advice/help from his/her manager). But you can guard against unnecessary distraction.