Take Back Control of Your Workday: Methods of Communication

We are all faced with more responsibility every day and the need to focus on achieving goals faster and accomplishing more. With the need to “keep up” many have turned the formerly routine 9-5 workday into the 8-6 plus day, texting and emailing from their phones during “off hours”. A significant amount of the workday involves the simple act of communication. We have found that the following communication tips and tricks are a simple way to create time to focus and allow for more productive work.

Sending that text only takes 30 seconds, or does it? It takes about five minutes to get into a groove and focus.  If we are interrupted on average only two times per hour during an eight hour workday, this amounts to over an hour of time spent refocusing on the tasks at hand. Imagine what you could do with another hour of time each workday!

This constant flow of communication is not always the best use of time.  You cannot always control communication with individuals external to your organization, but you can set up expectations within your business or your team to facilitate communication, minimize interruptions and maximize productivity.

We divide communication into two types: intrusive and passive. We define intrusive interactions as those that interrupt your thoughts without your ability to control the interruption.  Passive exchanges are those you can choose when to focus on.  Admittedly, you could turn your phone off, lock your door, close your email, but we are not proposing that.  We do assume, however, that you have configured your email not to ding, bounce, blink, or do anything that tells you something has arrived.

Each of the below forms of communication have pros and cons. Choosing to use one over another can lead to a more productive, collaborative and focused team. Establishing norms around their use and response time expectations can help your team take back control of their workday.

At a minimum, a discussion around forms of communication and response times can make your team more effective. Even more impactful, establishing norms and response time expectations can help your team take back control of their workday. We are excited envisioning how much more you can accomplish with another hour per day!