Studies show that when you are interrupted, it takes 20 minutes to regain the level of concentration you had reached before the disruption. Furthermore, in nearly 50 percent of the cases, a person never even returns to the original task. Track yourself for a week or two. Understand your own proclivity to be railroaded by someone who bursts into your office begging for help or that tendency to reach for the phone every time it rings. Each time you are interrupted, note the time, who it was, what they needed from you, and how long it took. Then, grade the importance and urgency of the interruption: A = critical and urgent; B = important but not urgent; C = unnecessary and not worth the time. At the end of the week, study your log to determine the average time lost to interruptions each day, giving special focus to A- and B-level interruptions. If the average time totals up to two hours of important and necessary interruptions a day, you need to start planning for them. In this case, you’d reserve two hours of open time in your daily schedule and use the rest of the day for planned tasks.    

Use the following strategies to prevent unnecessary interruptions:            

• Choose two or three people who can interrupt you at any time. Make a short list of key people whose interruptions you will always take, no matter what you are doing. Defer everyone else to a better time.            
• Always ask how long it will take. Every time you’re interrupted, ask how long the person needs (15 minutes? 45?). Tell them you want to know so that you can provide the focus and attention they really deserve. Holding people accountable to the time they ask for helps them be more efficient too.      
• Begin the conversation with “What can I do for you?” not “How are you?” “How are you?” is an open invitation to chat. “What can I do for you?” immediately focuses your interrupter on getting straight to the point.       
• Hire childcare to keep the kids occupied, even if you are working from home. Trying to concentrate and hoping the kids won’t interrupt is unfair to both of you.        
• Rehearse a few, comfortable “exit strategies” to make it easier and more natural to defer interruptions in the moment. For example, you can say, “I’m in the middle of finishing a project, can we talk this afternoon?” or, “I’m on a really tight deadline, can we catch up before the staff meeting?”            

What catchphrases will help you wriggle out of the unnecessary interruptions that derail your day?