We are all more pro­duc­tive alone then when oth­ers are around us, focus on how we can lever­age that to become more pro­duc­tive is key. I want to first touch on what I mean by around us when I am refer­ring to people.

I do not mean ran­dom strangers in a cof­fee shop, or other peo­ple in the room. I am refer­ring to indi­vid­u­als that you may have to inter­act with at some point. More specif­i­cally those around you that will need or want to inter­act with you.

Look around your office at co-workers and friends, they are all dis­trac­tions in the lurch. Peo­ple love to gos­sip and ask oth­ers ques­tions because it ful­fills their need for human inter­ac­tion and they don’t have to be focus­ing on work at the moment. This is the very rea­son that I get my best work done at home or in a cof­fee shop or vacant building.

I hate interruptions.

Every time you are in a good work flow and inter­rupted it will take upwards of thirty min­utes just to get back into that flow. There­fore if you are in an office where an hour won’t go by with­out you being inter­rupted by some­one, then you are not being allowed to be pro­duc­tive at all.

The same holds true for phone and email. I have the ringer off on my phone, and no noti­fi­ca­tions on my email client. I check mes­sages at reg­u­lar inter­vals I don’t let tech­nol­ogy force me into inter­rupt­ing a work­flow just to check messages.

Head­phones. If you are not lucky enough to be able to work from a place you choose, get your­self a large set of head­phones. The over the ear type, not the ear­buds. You don’t even have to lis­ten to any­thing (though if you do may I sug­gest Noise Can­celling Head­phones and per­haps Coltrane) you just need to have the head­phones on. This seems to be an interof­fice sig­nal that says do NOT inter­rupt me, I am busy.

more after jump…(A word of cau­tion about using head­phones some bosses get irri­tated so it is best not to put up a fight if you are asked to remove them. I rec­om­mend talk­ing with your boss and let­ting them know that you are hav­ing trou­ble focus­ing due to XYZ noise and would like to try using the head­phones. Assure them you are just using them to can­cel noise. Most bosses will let you try using the head­phones and see how it goes.)

Remote work­ing is the next step and the ulti­mate in being able to set up a dis­trac­tion free envi­ron­ment. It was easy for me  I own the com­pany so I can do what I please. There are many help­ful ways out there that teach you how to get going on set­ting up a remote work­ing sched­ule, though I rec­om­mend read­ing “The 4-Hour Work­week” if you want to learn more about this. It is also very help­ful to know in advance if any­one is cur­rently remote work­ing, or has done it in the past.

Set­ting up a dis­trac­tion free remote work­ing envi­ron­ment has been a cru­cial com­po­nent on light­en­ing my work­load on the days that I am in the office. Take a close look at what you need, not what you want in your office and get to mak­ing it happen.

If you find that you are in a strict cor­po­rate envi­ron­ment and you can­not remote work, nor can you use head­phones, then I would sug­gest polite dis­cour­age­ment. When a co-worker (not a boss) comes up to you and wants to inter­rupt you rush the con­ver­sa­tion. Let your coworker know that you are busy and that they are an inter­rup­tion. Don’t turn to them with your body, only your head. Keep look­ing back at what you were work­ing on.

You can also ask that per­son just to email you with what they need, because you are too busy at the moment to help them. Again make sure that this is not your boss, or some­one relay­ing a mes­sage from your boss. This should help to end the con­ver­sa­tion early and dis­suade them from com­ing back any time soon. They will also give oth­ers a heads up not to inter­rupt you, which is always nice.

Deal­ing with inter­rup­tions from peo­ple that sur­round us is one of the largest chal­lenges that face office work­ers. Each work­place is dif­fer­ent, but the goal is the same: reduce the inter­rup­tions by co-workers.

Related posts:

• Elim­i­nat­ing Dis­trac­tions in Your Environment
• Clut­ter Dis­tracts. A Blank Page Inspires.
• Where I Work
• No Sys­tem Will Save You