Professionals often complain that it is the unscheduled calls, last minute interruptions and unexpected crises that throw them off track.
Well, it is my experience that urgent distractions are always ‘expected‘. If you’re thrown off track, then you’re not looking realistically at your work!
How many of your colleagues can tell you exactly what they will be doing four hours from now? Or maybe twenty-four hours?
How often do you think their phone rings when they’re trying to concentrate on putting together a proposal? Or perhaps they have some crisis drop in their lap in the middle of a busy day of meetings?
It happens to everyone everyday. So, you can either continue to complain and suffer the consequences or you can change some of the ways you manage these so-called ‘unexpected’ situations.
Action – One way is to build ‘buffer time’ into your daily plan.
If you generally work an eight hour day and fill that up with at least eight hours of activities, you have left yourself no leeway for distractions or disruptions. Instead, schedule only six of your eight hours.
Those six hours need to include everything – meetings, phone calls, email time and administrative work.
Then, when the inevitable urgent matter appears, you’ll have some room to maneuver with far less stress. And, if by some chance you have a day that pans out exactly as planned – great! You’ll have some built in time to get ahead.