It turns out one of the biggest challenges to workplace productivity is coworker distractions. In its annual Workplace Distraction Report, Udemy, surveyed more than 1,000 office workers in the United States. Topping the list of the distractions at work was chatty coworkers.
While it’s good to be social with your colleagues, the study found that noisy, interruption-prone offices make employees unmotivated, stressed, and frustrated.
It can be challenging to work on an important project, be interrupted multiple times, and have to constantly refocus. Over time, you may start to dread the sight of some coworkers, as they bring with them the potential for a long discussion about weekend plans, sports teams, or office gossip.
How can you protect your time from these coworker distractions without being rude. Try these tactics with them:
Create Barriers
When you need to focus, close a door or put up a sign to prevent interruptions. Sometimes humor is a good way to get your important message across, in a playful way. The sign could say something like, “Taming dragons but come in if it’s urgent.” You’re letting people know you’re busy but not unavailable.
Sometimes a barrier is about moving to a different location, like an empty conference room. If people can’t find you, they can’t interrupt you.
Remove Bait to Prevent Coworker Distractions
The candy dish on your desk gives your coworkers an open invitation to interrupt you. You’re attracting them with bait. Anyone who wants a sugar rush will come to your desk.
While the candy dish represents a powerful networking tool, you may want to limit its availability. Maybe, it only comes out for special occasions and appears in places like break rooms or meetings.
Make Visitors Work for You
Some coworkers like to spend a lot of time chatting with you. While they’re energized by the interaction, they keep you from completing your work. How do you get rid of them, without being rude?
A clever way is to give that person some work to do for you. This can be a menial task like, collating reports.
Just say something like, “Hey, while we’re sitting here and chatting, could you help me put these reports together?”
In the worst case scenario, the person stays and helps you complete some of your work. But what often happens is the talkative visitor decides to spend less time, chatting with you because it now involves doing some work, something they’re probably trying to avoid.
Do You Have a Problem?
For a week, track how much time coworker distractions are keeping you from getting your work done. This can define whether you have a problem and give you comfort for making some changes that may feel anti-social at first.
Your time at work is a valuable resource and sometimes you have to protect it.
