Dr. Ed Tori explains that even brief interruptions create measurable recovery lag. He recommends visible signals like wearing a suit at home or a labeled hat during focus time, then removing them when you're available. The cue tells others you're deep in work.
Hey, this is Dr. Tory with ProductivityPearls.com your tip for today is to give a visual cue for others not to interrupt you. So if you. So here's the. Here's the issue. The moment you are interrupted in some way, shape or form, even if it's somebody saying, hey, Ed, do you have a few minutes? Ed, do you have a second? That sort of just that act, that question is an interruption. Even if you say, actually, I don't have the time, and you whatever. Or if you, God forbid, actually jump in and say, yes, I do have that time, if it's an important moment for you, you want to not even be interrupted, because there's a period of recovery from every interruption, every interruption. If you look at human factors sciences, whether it's cognitive psychology or engineering, in the discipline of human factors, they study error. They study efficiencies and things like that. Wherever the human interacts with anything else, whether it's another human or an interface or a device, there are certain things that actually encourage us to make errors, be distracted, lose sight of the task, or to do those tasks more efficiently, all based on the design of the things. Well, one of the things that they focus on is interruptions. And it turns out that. That when you are interrupted, there's a lag period of recovery before you can get back into whatever the task was, before you can get into the state of mind, the emotion and the actual action and the behavior of the task at hand. So any interruption, even do you have a second? That is an interruption. So how do you eliminate them? Well, in periods of high focus time, I actually give a visual cue so that people can look at me and know not to interrupt, even with a question. So when I'm at home, sometimes I'll dress up in a suit. If I'm going to work at home, I'll have the suit jacket on, the dress shirt, pants. And my kids will walk in and be like, what's he doing? And they know that if they see me in work clothes, I'm working. And so they don't interrupt. Now, obviously, if it's important or whatever, then, yeah, go ahead. But if it. If it's not worth the interruption, and that person will get to know over time what's appropriate to interrupt you with and what's not, then they'll know. So give a visual cue. At home, I dress wearing a suit. At work, I actually have a hat that I made. I made a design that says, let me focus. And actually, you can order those because so many of my friends Saw me wearing it. Colleagues, etc. Even my boss saw me wearing these hats. And so they're like, I want one of those. Where do I get those? Well, so ProductivityPearls.com makes them too, but that's not here to pitch you. But basically, I wear a hat that says, let me focus. And if I'm facing away from the door, I have the hat to the back so that they see. Let me focus the moment they walk in. First of all, I never wear hats. So the moment they see me wear a hat, it's a pattern interrupt, which I teach in influence courses and things like that. But basically, they're used to a certain pattern. They walk in, whoa, what's he doing? Why does he have that on? Same just like my kids seeing me in a suit at home. Well, that's a pattern interrupt. It stops them in their tracks and then causes them to reflect. Is this worth interrupting? And if it isn't, they won't. And that's the beauty of it. So if I'm facing towards, like, slightly away from the door, I actually angle the hat. I mean, I might look a little bit like Flavor Flav or something like that, but it's okay. I angle the hat. That's also a pattern interrupt. I angle the hat towards the door. When it's angled towards the door, they see it and they know not to interrupt me. Sometimes I'm even walking at work. I walk and I have headphones where I'm listening to something and taking notes. Or I'm just using the time to think, but at the same time walking. So as I'm walking, if I have the let me focus hat on, no one bothers me, and I can focus. And then when the time comes, I take it off. When it's not a period of high focus, I don't wear it. It's not like I'm wearing it all the time. I only wear it at designated times where it's super important for me to focus. It eliminates the interruptions. It doesn't just, you know, help you handle the interruption. It stops the interruption from ever occurring. So think about that. Think about visual cues you could use to stop people in their tracks before the interruption ever occurs again. This is Dr. Tory with ProductivityPearls.com send me emails about whether this stuff is working for you, how it works, or if you have other tips, let me know. Again, thanks for visiting productivitypearls. Com.
