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Joan Burge's Administrative Blog

Interruptions Steal Time from Executive Assistants

Posted by: Joan Burge on 7/22/2009

An interruption here and there may not seem like a big deal but add up how many minutes in a day your are interrupted and it can add up to hours. Here are a few ideas on how to save your precious time!

o Be direct. Tell people in a nice tone of voice that you can’t talk right now.
o Rearrange your office to create a working environment, not a social environment.
o Remove chairs by your desk.
o Take advantage of incidental hallway meetings for quick consultations.
o Watch for self-interruptions.
o Limit an interruption by telling the person you have only 5 minutes. Ask if that will be enough time or should you schedule a meeting for later.
o Remove your candy dish!
o Ask for a wall divider.

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6 Comments

    • Jul 22 2009, 7:31 AM Alice
    • Great tips. I get so many interruptions that it gets very overwhelming. I will try these tips. Again, thanks Joan for all of your great advice.

    • Jul 22 2009, 8:32 AM Tori
    • I subscribe to The Administrative Professional Channel via SkillSoft and took a training session the other day. In this session, it explained every time we are interrupted, it takes 30% longer to complete whatever it is we're working on. That's how long it takes us to refocus ourselves on the task we were just doing and get back into that groove we were in. On a side note, I highly recommend The Administrative Professional Channel. They offer training sessions from 4 minutes to an hour or more. You can easily sharpen your skills by investing 4 minutes at the beginning or end of the day in yourself. What they teach also applies to other positions, as well.

    • Jul 24 2009, 8:32 AM Joan Burge
    • Hello Tori! Thanks for sharing a good resource with our bloggers. I'll have to check it out. I have never heard of this.

    • Jul 29 2009, 11:45 AM Donna L. Gordon
    • Another thing I do is I have sign that I place on my desk that reads: "I am currently working on a time sensitive assignment. Please don't interrupt me unless it is urgent!" Amazing how it keeps visitors away. Honestly sometimes I think I must have a shingle out that says psychiatrist is in!!!

    • Jul 30 2009, 11:47 AM Tori
    • You can try The Administrative Channel out for free for 2 weeks. It's about $600 but well worth the investment. You also get to view IAAP's Annual Administrative Conferences for free. They have the current and previous year on file.

    • Jul 30 2009, 12:15 PM Tori
    • Every day, I am interrupted by polite people who want to "hand" me documents instead of laying them on my empty desk when I am engrossed in a project. This disturbance always throws me off. I know it is supposed to be polite; however, is it really proper etiquette? I can understand if my desk is swamped under papers; but, it's not. They just prefer to "hand" everything to me. Nothing of great importance, either. While others will just place it on my desk or in my chair. It's never an issue. To try to regain some of my time back, I wanted to stop them before entering my cube by creating a hanging Inbox folder for the outside of my cube. Currently, I couldn’t find anything right now that would work. So, I opted for a tray labeled with big, bold letters on three sides with the words, Inbox. It sits on the 4-draw file cabinet at the edge of my cube. It's almost eye level. The problem I have now is these workers don't know what an Inbox is used for, only the managers know. I have to direct them how to use it. I attempted this some years ago and notified everyone via email to no avail. Sometimes, I feel being too polite is not being polite at all, which I never thought I would ever say that! And I also agree with Donna. I've been tempted to put out a 5 cent sign like Lucy did in Peanuts.

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