Comments on: Interview Productive Work Zone

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:41:07 +0000

Well that is quite a job combination. :) One trick that might work with your boss is to frame things in terms of what you are going to have to stop doing to deal with the next emergency. So if he says “I need you to work on B right now” you might say “Ok. I was working on A, but I can switch to B if that is higher priority at this point.”

If you can establish the mentality that adding a task doesn’t cause things to occur in parallel it will help you. Another idea is to write down everything he/she asks for and ask him/her to prioritize the list for you.

By: Larry Wells

Larry Wells — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:47:20 +0000

Thank you for the suggestions. I should have told you that my profession is computer programmer/analyst. Sorry for not mentioning that initially. Also I have the responsibility for routers, switches and security appliances. Another thing is that my boss is an accountant with no information systems back ground. He has no clue on how long something should take. Everything is ASAP to him. I really do not know if switching hours would work. He is here beyond the 8 hour work day. Talking is frustrating in itself and I have tried anticipating his questions to no avail. It is tough.

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:25:00 +0000

While not knowing exactly what your job is, here are a few suggestions. You might consider proactively asking your boss if there is anything he needs. Let him know that you are going to forward your phone and try to focus on a particular project for the next 45 minutes, but wanted to check with him first to see if there was anything he needed.

If you don’t have an office you might be able to use a conference room or some other area. Once again approach your boss and let him know what you are going to be doing (or ask permission if you need to).

Another idea would be to try to work when there aren’t as many people around. For example, if you came in a few hours earlier in the morning or stayed later in the evening. I would suggest coming in for an hour early for a week to see how it works for you. If it seems to help, ask your boss if you can shift your work hours to come in an hour early and leave an hour early as an experiement. Let him know you’ve tried it for a week and you think it really helps you get through work that requires concentration much quicker. If you can give him specific examples that is great. For example, if your boss is familiar with a particular report that normally takes 3 hours, he may be very interested if you say you did it in 30 minutes by doing it before anyone else was there for the day.

Also check your employee handbook. There may be some policies already to allow flexible work schedules. I wouldn’t use them to demand anything, but it would be helpful to know if your company has something in place already.

One other thing. Don’t trap your boss. Many bosses will oppose change because they are worried they can’t put things back once they let you try something new. So instead of asking “can I shift my work schedule ahead one hour” ask “can we try an experiment to shift my work schedule ahead one hour and then re-evaluate how well it works in a week?”

Good luck. I hope at least some of those suggestions will help with your situation.

By: Larry Wells

Larry Wells — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:56:05 +0000

These are fantastic ideas and practices. But my environment does not handle some of them. Example, I have no office, only a cube with no door and allot of traffic going to the mail room and back. The acoustics are lousy and you can hear everyone’s conversation in the entire room. Next my supervisor will keep calling me every 30 seconds (not kidding at all) with a single question which I answer and then another call with another question generated from the previous call and so on and so forth. If I do not answer, then he walks down and asks. I cannot do anything about it and it drives me crazy. I read a while back that for every interruption on the average it takes a maximum of 10 to 15 minutes to regroup. In that case I would have to take work home to come out ahead. I have had one quadruple bypass at 44; I do not desire another one because of stress. Any and all comments are welcome for helping me with my productivity. Thank you.

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:50:36 +0000

No problem. Thanks for taking part in the interview.

By: Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:21:35 +0000

Hi Mark- I saw the nice mention of my blog, The Happiness Project, here. I very much appreciate you shining a spotlight on my blog! Thanks and best wishes, Gretchen

By: Chris Edgar

Chris Edgar — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:02:06 +0000

Thanks for this — these are some great perspectives. Personally, what I do is try to keep my attention on my body — feeling my feet on the floor, and my back against the chair, and this keeps my mind from drifting into irrelevant stuff.

By: Armen Shirvanian

Armen Shirvanian — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:02:00 +0000

Hey Mark.

There is loads of information here.

Some points I will take away from this would be keeping logs, because I do that sometimes and I then quickly see what worked for me, like Lodewijk said. I use instrumental music and drink water like Maria said, so we match there. Fred’s tip is a good one I need to implement so what I am doing is in the playful category.

The multiple suggestions about removing all distractions is what I rarely try, but I have had some great success when I did that, so I’m not sure why I don’t do it more. I will keep it in mind.

That Pavlonian conditioning from Joel is one I do make use of, in that I have certain items geared towards “Crush It” mode, and only use those at that time.

What a package here. Thanks for creating this.