Top tips on…Coping with interruptions

Some years ago, when Archie Norman was chief executive of Asda, he asked his managers to wear a baseball cap when sitting at their open-plan desks ‘thinking’ to indicate to colleagues that they were ‘busy’ and should, therefore, be left alone

 
Interruptions are, of course, an occupational hazard of the workplace but they come in virtual form too.
According to recent research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, computer screen pop-ups may slow down your work more than you think.
Although the actual interruption may only last a few moments, the study shows that we then lose more time when we try to find our place and resume the task that was interrupted.
The research, led by Dr Helen Hodgetts and Professor Dylan Jones at Cardiff University, examined the cost of on-screen interruptions in terms of the time taken to complete a simple seven-step computer task.
The researchers found that, even after only a five second interruption, people take longer than normal to complete the next step in the task they are working on.
"The interruption breaks our cognitive focus on the task in hand, so we have to work out where we were up to and what we were planning to do next before we can resume the task at our original speed," explains Dr Hodgetts.
The researchers suggest that e-mail alerts and similar pop-up messages should be:

• As small and discreet as possible
• Should not obscure the original activity
• Any visual alert should disappear after a few seconds if not responded to.

The researchers also point out obvious practical steps that computer users can take including turning off or at least setting to ‘busy’ instant-messenger systems. E-mail alerts could also be turned off or only enabled for messages that the sender tags specifically as high priority.
Forestalling interruptions in the ‘real’ world is more difficult but if the cap fits…

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