Interruptions

Interruptions kill your creativity and your ability to do deep work.

Yesterday I had blocked out the whole morning to focus on editing a single project that’s due by EOD on Thursday. I’ve been a bit behind on it so I needed to make some quick progress.

The first interruption was the office manager coming in to tell me something I already knew, and how she was planning on fixing it, which really didn’t involve me.

The next was another project that needed some tasks to get done. It couldn’t wait, so I had to stop what I was working on to work on those next steps.

Then the general manager came in to pull me into a conversation that could have happened asynchronously – not in-person in realtime.

Each of these little 5 to 15 minute interruptions meant I had to stop what I was doing, switch my focus, and do something else that was not my original plan for the day.

During my lunch break, I could tell that my emotional state wasn’t great and that I needed to do something different when I got back.

What did I do?

I closed the door.

It was a small miracle. It’s like people forgot that I was even there. I turned off my notifications and put my phone away and worked for three hours straight and got caught up on my project.

It’s crazy that I’m still learning these little lessons, especially that I have way more control over how my day goes than I thought.

The same goes for you. If you need to get work done on a project, shut the door, shut off the world, and go deep. Most interruptions can wait until you’re ready to tackle them.