Building focus within short work blocks
June 23, 2010 10:24 AM Subscribe
Short blocks of worktime, during which I need to do work I'm accustomed to doing in much longer blocks. Any strategies for focusing quickly, re-focusing after interruptions (which can come at any time), and generally dealing with much shorter/'shallower' work blocks than one is used to having?
This can be tough, especially if the work you do is mostly longer projects. How short is short? One thing to remember is that most people can actually only focus on a project for 30-60 minutes at a time anyway, which is why many people who study such things recommend hourly short breaks. So learning how to work in short bursts may be helpful to you over the long term.
I would recommend looking at your to-do list each morning and splitting the tasks up into smaller chunks of work that can each get done in less than 20-30 minutes. This might be daunting at first, but you'll become a pro at it in no time. This way, even if you only have 20 minutes between interruptions, you can still get something discrete done. If you get interrupted in the middle of one of these tasks, remind yourself that you only have to finish X minutes of that task, and it will probably be easier to refocus. Or just pick another task in your to-do list to start, and make a note to get back to the other task later.
Finally, is there any way to minimize these interruptions? Do they come in person or over the phone? Are you required to address them at the time, or can you wait (ie, let calls go to voicemail)?
posted by lunasol at 10:51 AM on June 23, 2010
I would recommend looking at your to-do list each morning and splitting the tasks up into smaller chunks of work that can each get done in less than 20-30 minutes. This might be daunting at first, but you'll become a pro at it in no time. This way, even if you only have 20 minutes between interruptions, you can still get something discrete done. If you get interrupted in the middle of one of these tasks, remind yourself that you only have to finish X minutes of that task, and it will probably be easier to refocus. Or just pick another task in your to-do list to start, and make a note to get back to the other task later.
Finally, is there any way to minimize these interruptions? Do they come in person or over the phone? Are you required to address them at the time, or can you wait (ie, let calls go to voicemail)?
posted by lunasol at 10:51 AM on June 23, 2010
Response by poster: Good questions. Work blocks do usually range from 20 to 60 minutes. Interruptions tend to last 30 to 90 minutes, and can't be minimized (nor would I want to; they're interruptions from a baby, so they're generally about bottle, playtime, or new diaper). So interruptions are both much longer and more frequent than average for a workday, but also much more welcome than average (I'm not getting bothered by calls or demands; I'm just caring for baby and then focusing back on work if he falls asleep again).
The issue is that during these times, I'm sometimes still trying to do a type of work for which I'm used to needing long uninterrupted blocks. (Needing them because the way I do the work is based on keeping a lot of different layers active in my head at once, from large [100+ hour] projects.) I've thought one solution might be to experiment with doing or conceiving the work in different ways.
posted by kalapierson at 5:57 PM on June 23, 2010
The issue is that during these times, I'm sometimes still trying to do a type of work for which I'm used to needing long uninterrupted blocks. (Needing them because the way I do the work is based on keeping a lot of different layers active in my head at once, from large [100+ hour] projects.) I've thought one solution might be to experiment with doing or conceiving the work in different ways.
posted by kalapierson at 5:57 PM on June 23, 2010
I would focus on how you stop work. Come up with a quick way of noting where an item of work is up to when interruptions happen and what needs to happen next, so that it's easier to start again. This might be a notepad that you keep just for this purpose; or it might just be saying to yourself "I've just done X and when I start again I will do Y".
posted by girlgenius at 12:12 AM on June 24, 2010
posted by girlgenius at 12:12 AM on June 24, 2010
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posted by Etrigan at 10:28 AM on June 23, 2010