Three work challenges: getting interrupted on in office days, too ambitious when planning, long commutes that feel like wasted time

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Women on Instagram shared their biggest work time management pain points with me. Let’s cover three of them today!

Below is a transcript of the episode. Enjoy!

Full transcript:

Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the bright method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally. Let’s get you falling asleep, proud of what you got done today, and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in.

Hey, hey, and welcome back. So today we’re gonna do something a little bit different, and that is a little bit of a grab bag of questions like pain point things that I’ve gotten in the past. And so as I’ve shared, what I do sometimes is throw up some question boxes on Instagram and I’m like, what are your work pain points?

What are your personal pain points? And it just helps me understand what people are struggling with. And then it also helps me make sure that what I’m putting out there is relevant. And so today I wanna address three pain points that people raised in the work [00:01:00] context and just kind of explain just some overview things I would think about in regards to those pain points.

And I hope it’s helpful to you. So the first one is, and the quote is all the random drop eyes at work. This is why I love my two work from home days each week, and I think a lot of people can relate to that or might long for those work from home days themselves. Now, just to clarify. Some people are the reverse.

They work better in the office. Maybe home is more chaotic and interrupted and so the office is actually where they have calm, which is also totally fair. So it, this isn’t relevant to everybody. I’m not trying to pedestal work from home when for some people it’s not the case. That said, even if you are the flip of this person writing in, just listen, because I still think some of this stuff we’re gonna talk about is relevant.

So the first thing I’d throw out there, and I think the first like just kind of helpful first step, even if you take other steps going forward, is embrace the reality of that. Like embrace the reality of when I work from [00:02:00] home. I am less interrupted when I work in the office. I am more interrupted. And if you are someone who’s different, just flip those, but just be very clear on, this is my reality on like an interruptible scale at these locations.

And then match, make your work to those environments. So match, make your more focused work for when you are at home or in the office, depending on where you have more focus. And then think about that more easily interruptible work for your more easily interruptable office environment. For me, those things that easily interruptable work is more like processing email.

It might be doing like more small hit things like little phone calls or things like that. And it might, and I wish there this weren’t the case, but people don’t interrupt meetings as much. Right. And so maybe stack your meetings for office days if you’re going to be more interrupted there. Because if you have to have these meetings anyway, one, [00:03:00] it’s nice to do them in person or.

Even if you end up doing them on Zoom, which I know happens too, you are going to be less interrupted by other people because other people respect meetings more than focused work, which don’t get me started on that, but it is what it is. And so by matchmaking your meetings that it will be less interrupted and then things that can be more interrupted, like small tasks and email for those days when you’re going to be more interrupted, then that’s a win.

Then you can save that more focused work for when you are in your less interruptible environment. So that’s the first point is just embrace reality. Just acknowledge that this is gonna happen instead of fighting against it. And then match. Make your tasks to the right things. Now there are some ways we could also try and whittle down interruptions, and there’s no right or wrong here.

It’s a little bit of an experiment grab bag of things that you could try. I know some people really like doing office hours. So if you, for example, are getting interrupted by a lot [00:04:00] of direct reports, let’s say you have a lot of reporting people to you, and they’re the ones, it’s not just like peers or people above you, but it’s people that you can kind of implement more of a structure and system around.

Then what you could do is try to just communicate out, Hey, if you have questions, I’m available for these two hours on this in-office day. Or twice a week for the hour and a half period of time and just show up if you have anything to do. Now, I will say there are pros and cons to this. On the one hand, it helps people I’ve heard, see how many questions you get.

Like if they show up and there are five more people, and now these people are asking you questions, it does bring to light a little bit the inundation that you’re experiencing. What I would also say though is that as the employee like direct report in this scenario, that’s really frustrating too to have to like kind of waste your time waiting for people.

But if it ends up being like more of a collaborative thing, that could be valuable as well. So it’s a little bit, you know, you kind of have to read the room here. So that’s [00:05:00] one option is what you’re trying to do is say, Hey, don’t interrupt me all the time. I’m gonna have these devoted hours to being interrupted with questions, and we’re gonna call that office hours.

These are the dates of them. The rest of the time, if you can, if it’s not an emergency, please save your questions for that time. The other option is a little bit at the flip of this is saying when I’m in the office, essentially, you don’t have to say this, but like your approach, your mental approach inside your own head is when I’m in the office, I am interruptible all the time except for the, these like one and a half hours, one and a hour that I close my door.

If you have a door, and I’m not interrupted, even if you don’t have a tour. You could email out to your team of direct reports and say, I’m available today. The only hours I’m not available are this. I will be in my office, but please don’t interrupt me or I will be at my desk, but please don’t interrupt me.

So that’s kind of the flip, is that your door is kind of always open, metaphorically or literally, but you are closing it for a period of time so that you can get some focused work done when you’re in the office. As a side [00:06:00] note here too, what I like doing is saying. If you bring me a question, I wanna hear one or two solutions that you’ve considered as well.

And you can say that in a nicer way than that. But that’s just the gist of it. And what it does is it really whittles down the number of questions you’re gonna get. ’cause people start problem solving their own issues for you. Then when the questions do come at you, then they’re a lot more well thought out.

They’re giving you more to work on. You can be like, yep, do that. Or you learn kind of, you can teach them more about the strategy instead of just feeding the answers. So that’s a really like kind of more side note way of whittling down questions as well. Is saying that you want one or two considered solutions for every question or problem brought your way.

Let’s say you’re doing some of this and essentially, or you’re just, you’re kind of like ad hoc, one-off closing your door if you have a door to try and get some work done, and people tend to interrupt. One thing I really like doing that, I know I’m not blowing your mind, is saying, putting a note on the door saying [00:07:00] you’re not available right now.

Like people don’t always read a closed door the way we want them to. But to up that, I do think it’s really valuable to give people clarity around when you will be available. Like if I, I’m just thinking back when I was an associate, when the partner would have something on her door that said like, it’s just the door is closed or like, do not enter, or things like that.

Then I’m antsy because I’m trying to get something else done and I don’t know when I’m gonna be able to ask her that question. Or if it says, do not enter, I will be available at 2:30 PM. That’s just a lot easier to work with. That like reduces my own anxiety around getting answers to the question and moving the ball forward.

And if I do need help before then, then I just know to shoot an email and you could write that on there too. Available at 2:30 PM if you need me before then, shoot me an email. I will check my email occasionally or something like that. So the final point I wanna raise on this one is. The hard part about being in office is that you’re kind of a sitting duck, like people swing by [00:08:00] your desk.

You’re sitting, they’re standing, or they’re sitting, but they’re like, they’re commandeering your space and you, it’s very hard to get them to leave and you can say. I need to get back to this work. And that’s something I would say. Like if someone swings by and they’re like, do you have those five minutes?

I would say yes. I, I have two minutes. I’m gonna set a timer or five minutes or whatever you wanna say. I’m gonna set a timer ’cause I really like, I need to get back to this, or I don’t wanna be late or whatever. But happy to talk to you for that period of time and like use a timer so that it’s more objective and you’re not antsy the whole time.

But let’s say you’re like, man, I could talk to you all day long. I really gotta get back to this. And they still do not leave. They’re still there 10 minutes later. Or even two minutes later, just realize that like you’re at their whim because you’re just sitting there. And so one thing I started doing is also leaving my desk and be like, Hey, I gotta run into the restroom, or I’m gonna get another cup of coffee, or I gotta refill my water bottle, or whatever you wanna say.

Or I gotta go talk to this other colleague and get up. And you can say, do you wanna walk [00:09:00] with me? But you are moving them away from your space and moving them along, and that can be a really powerful thing as well. It’s just simple, but there’s like elegance in the simplicity and like, remove yourself from being the sitting duck and get yourself out of there.

So just to recap before we move on to the next one, the question was all the random drop bys at work. This is why I love working at home. Totally fair. Embrace reality. Realize where you are interrupted and where you are not, and then match. Make the right work to those environments so that you are embracing the reality of the interruptions, and then leveraging the lack of interruption days for your focus time.

In terms of whittling down interruptions, ask for solutions to be presented for any question or challenge that they’re presenting you with. Consider holding office hours. On the flip side, consider going dark for an hour or an hour and a half. You could communicate that outward to the direct reports or people who interrupt you a lot.

You also could use notes on the door [00:10:00] or just in the email being like, I don’t wanna be interrupted from this time to this time. At that time, I’ll be available for questions. One thing I didn’t mention also is if the same person is interrupting you all the time is setting up standing meetings with them.

And I think that that’s something I’ve talked about in a past episode. But if it’s the same person, two people, three people interrupting you all the time, just set up a weekly meeting with them and ask ’em to hold their questions. That can be another effective way to reduce the kind of random interruptions that you have.

Then finally, if you feel like a sitting duck, like being held hostage by someone who just wants to chat and blather on and on and on, leave, get up, make an excuse, and like move away from your desk with them, and then you can always circle back to it when you are free and get back to work. Alright, number two, pain point that came up is always more ambitious than realistic when planning.

And aren’t we all? So really what’s going on here, I think we all know, is that we are underestimating how [00:11:00] long things take, and we are having a lot of wishful thinking going on. And I think kind of as with everything, we just accept the reality that we are not very good at estimating and planning from like a, how long is this gonna take as perspective?

And we think we can get a lot more done. And I think just knowing that about ourselves is really helpful because then you just start, I like to think of it as like, you should always trust your gut. Except when it comes to how long you think things are gonna take, and then just know, like anytime you’re estimating, you’re like, I am not that good at this.

Let me be more intentional and use like formal, weird strategies to help me get closer to reality in this department. So the first thing is, is actually sit down and plan. Don’t just wing your plans and kind of be like, I’m just gonna start and I’ll figure it out along the way in full. Like there’s obviously some benefit to that.

I’m not knocking that as a total approach. Like obviously we learn more as we keep going, but it is really, really helpful to sit [00:12:00] down and just really think like for the next 20, 30 minutes, I am going to plan out this project. Part of that is to understand just really slow down and look at the full scope of it.

Understand like dependencies and getting balls rolling with other people earlier than you like would naturally think to do it, that kind of stuff. But in this regard, when it comes to just really understanding how long things are gonna take and making sure that our ambition is more realistic than idealistic and never gonna happen.

The benefit of slowing down to plan out a project is that we tend to, and what I encourage you to do in a planning session is really think about all the bite-sized steps that you can see today. Again, you’re gonna learn more along the way, but what are all the bite-sized steps you can think of today?

Like all of ’em, just brain dump ’em all on a piece of paper in a project management tool, however you think. Then start estimating how much time each of those steps are gonna take. I’ve talked about this in previous episodes about underestimating and other things, [00:13:00] but we’re just much better at estimating smaller things than like a larger project that we think is gonna happen.

And so just really. In my program in the Bright Method program, I walk you through a six step process of how to do this, give you a ton of examples, that kind of stuff. But in short, just for purposes of today on a podcast is just break it down into the bite-sized steps you can think of and estimate those.

I also talked about this in the episode. I wanna say it’s episode three on underestimating that I encourage you to check out if you haven’t listened to it yet. Or even it might just hit differently. ’cause I think sometimes where we don’t realize underestimating is our problem. Until we’ve been trying this for a while and then we’re like, huh, I’m not, I’m not that good at estimating, and that’s okay.

Like I really don’t think anyone is. I think we live in a lot of wishful thinking area and that’s a symptom of it. So listen to that episode again. I do think that it can help and hit differently when you realize that that might be an issue and there’s some tips and [00:14:00] strategies in there that might help, like as you’re planning and you realize you’re not that good at estimating is then just.

Simple, but double, triple the amount of time you’re protecting for something so that your estimate and your plans are more likely to be realistic. So check out that episode on those strategies. The other thing I wanna say here that I think is important is also whether it’s the Bright method or another system, don’t beat yourself up when you realize things take a lot longer than you thought.

I used to do that, like I would blame myself. I would think I wasn’t, I don’t know if it was like not a smart thing ’cause I didn’t know how long things would take or, I don’t know, just like kind of, I would like shame myself a bit when things took longer than I thought and I was rolling things over into different days or I didn’t get, I was staying up later to get something done than I thought.

That kind of stuff. And like at the end of the day, just know that one part of that feeling I think comes from thinking everybody else knows and you [00:15:00] don’t, and there’s something wrong with you. No one. No one’s great at this, especially right away I would say I’m decently good at it, but still, if I do a whole new project, like a whole new thing, I know there are a lot of unknowns.

The benefit is that I know that I don’t know where I think in the past, we think we know, and then we are surprised every time we. I do think we get better at this. The more we do it, the more that we make things visual in a calendar and understand how long things take and have the visual kind of flag like, Hey, you didn’t get even halfway done, and your time is up.

Like you just have more concrete flags for your brain to understand, oh, I am not estimating this well. So I do think we get better with it over time and when things are new we are more clear on, I don’t know how long this thing is gonna take. It’s probably gonna take me a lot longer than I thought. And I think that’s a very good approach to have when we’re planning anything or considering a new opportunity or anything like that.

So that’s just something that’s like always good to think about. But [00:16:00] what I also want you to hear is use a system to help you learn next time. Especially for the repetitive things, obviously it’s easier for repetitive things is just expand the amount of time or add another time block and repeat that going forward so that you have more time.

An easy one to think of is I recommend blocking time to process email. If every day you are ending up with tons and tons of email that you haven’t addressed, you need to expand the amount of time that you process email. It’s a annoying. Frustrating thing to hear, but it’s just an example of, this isn’t a shame thing if you can’t get your email done in that period of time.

It’s that you haven’t protect sufficient time because you underestimated how much email you have. So you have to expand the window or add another window or figure something else out. And that’s something else might relate to workload, which is a whole different conversation that I won’t dig into right now.

That’s just really what I want you to hear. And I teach, like coming up with workflows and time estimates for things and things like that in a program, but [00:17:00] more understand that it’s a neutral thing, like how long things take us. I think at the end of the day, it’s just, it is what it is. Like sure we can try and be more efficient, all this kind of stuff, but for most scenarios in our lives.

Things take as long as they take. We just have to get our brain up to what they take, like how much time they take, and then accommodate and account for that going forward. And so just remove the shame from you and just just ask, how am I gonna avoid this going forward and expand the time or eliminate or things like that as well.

Alright, so just to recap, number two is always more ambitious than realistic. When planning know that everyone has this, I think almost everyone, even when you’ve been going through the Bright Method or something else for a long period of time, there’s still new curve balls that come at you. The benefit is really just knowing that you don’t know what you don’t know.

That’s probably gonna take longer than you think. And then that leads me into 0.2 is use strategies that I’ve covered in that underestimating episode [00:18:00] before. Just know that I think, you know, some of those are like break things down basic, but multiply by two or three, how much time you’re protecting, and then remove the shame from it when it happens.

And just think, how am I gonna avoid this going forward? And I cover a lot more about this in the program, but I think that these guiding principles can help, even if you never go through a program, is just to understand those things can be really helpful. And then, as I said, check out that episode on underestimating, I think it’s episode three.

Last one is I lose so much time going into the office. It’s ridiculous, and I think a lot of people can feel that pain point. The tricky part I will say is that often your options here to avoid it from like a timing standpoint can be limited. This person, I don’t know if they have kids, that’s something that.

I can imagine it’s very frustrating. I watched people who were able to like come into the office really early to avoid traffic, leave early to avoid traffic, or leave later to avoid traffic and all this kind of stuff. And then you have kids and [00:19:00] you are kind of at the whim of daycare hours or school hours, and then suddenly you’re like, you kind of can be forced into these high traffic times.

And so the struggle here is when you don’t have a lot of options around that. So I do wanna just point out, and I know that obviously these are simpler than reality dictates, but also sometimes I think we like kind of dismiss the simple options as options. Like if this really bugs you, like, I mean, and this person wrote in like, I lose, this is one of their main.

Pain points is I lose so much time going into the office. It’s ridiculous. Then I think it’s just worth pointing out some of these other options. One, as I said, is changing up the time if you can, so that your commute is shorter. As I said, I know that’s not an available option for everybody, but I just figured I’d throw it out there in case it is negotiating hybrid, like if you’re really getting close to throwing in the towel [00:20:00] on this job, you could say that.

Essentially, or not say it, but more go in with the confidence of, I really wanna make this job work for me. I am losing eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours, whatever, hours a week to commuting. And it’s just too aggravating. And so I just, I need an some hybrid arrangement so that some of this is whittled down.

That’s an option. I think sometime, I mean, I know this job market is wonky and so I’m not trying to be unrealistic here. Your culture, if it’s like full across the board, work in the office now, that might not fly, especially if they’re like very gungho about it, especially if they’re like really, really into this new policy.

I just think we all have more value than we realize at work, and so I just throw that out there as an option. Another option is to move your home. I know, I mean, I’m just throwing out all these options. I know they sound crazy, but also sometimes the most [00:21:00] simple options are things that we kind of don’t consider.

And so thinking about the location of your home, if that’s an option. Again, I know the housing market is not like weird in its own way, so I’m just throwing out options. I, you can totally balk and laugh and think I’m ridiculous, but if these are such a pain point, I just do wanna throw out some of the obvious options.

And then the other option is move jobs. Like get a different job that’s closer to your home that you could, either that or that you don’t have to go into an office. I think that commutes are like, driving times are a massive impact on our day. I think we dismiss it, but I just. I think we dismiss it because so many people have to deal with it and it’s just one of those normal things, but has such an impact.

Like I’m just coming off summer right now where I lost an hour and a half of my work hours every day to driving kids around to camps and stuff, and now I have that hour and a half back ’cause of the bus, and it’s just remarkable to me how much more time I [00:22:00] have. And so I’m more validating that that is a real concern.

And so we just wanna problem solve it for the real concern that it is. So the obvious simple, but sometimes dismissed and maybe crazy options are again, change the timing of your drive, negotiate hybrid. If you can change jobs to be closer to your home or change homes to be closer to your job, and now let’s assume that none of those things can happen and you are stuck with this commute.

That is what it is. You’re just owning it now though, because you’ve thought about all these options and you’ve decided to stick with what you’ve got for now, or just throwing, going back to those, you start making a plan for bringing one of those to life over time. That’s a kind of way to bring those to life.

It’s not a do it right now thing. I was gonna say the theme of this podcast, but really it’s the theme of everything I do is embrace the reality. If this is your reality, that [00:23:00] you’re gonna spend this much time in the car every single day, or on a train or on a bus, or wherever you are, just embrace that reality.

How do you make it feel like it’s not such a waste in your life, that it’s not so ridiculous and this change by the day of the week, whether you’re going into the office, whether you’re leaving the office. Obviously it depends on what, what you’re in. Like if you’re in a car, you could maybe take calls where if you’re on a train, you can’t take calls, but you could process email.

Obviously like these things are different for every person, but what I and I, I’ve talked about this somewhere, whether it’s a podcast episode or a post on Instagram or something, is if you’re gonna have these commutes is thinking about at the end of this commute, how do I want to feel and maybe guide what you do during that time to help you towards that.

So going into the office, maybe you wanna get your industry hat on. Maybe it’s a time that you never listen to those, like not [00:24:00] continuing education things, but like reading up on your industry, that kind of stuff. If you’re driving, maybe you find a podcast that helps you with that, that talks about your industry that would get your brain into the right like head space and helps you keep up with what’s going on in your industry in a way that you haven’t had time for, and that would bring you joy.

And that would help you feel really good about that time. What I also envision here is more of a menu of options. That this is not what you do. Like every single day. You could, you could say, every Monday I do this, every Tuesday, I do this every Wednesday. Or you each have a menu of options that are like things you could do.

So I would calendar the commute time. Then within that, have a grab bag of things you could do. Listen to this specific podcast, call this specific friend or these friends that this timing might work for them. Think about a work issue you’re trying to solve. Like it is like thinking time that we often don’t have.

And so giving yourself something to think [00:25:00] about that’s been bugging you, that you’re trying to problem solve at work could be a way that it’s not, it doesn’t feel like such wasted time. Like if you have something. Strategy wise that you’re thinking about, and that could be something that’s useful. I would use Siri to capture I ideas during this time, but you could use chat GBT and talk, talk to it if you wanted to.

Obviously not confidential work info, but what I mean, you can think about how to, I would definitely have a way that you’re capturing ideas as you’re thinking, because if you’re like me, you won’t remember a minute later, so you need to capture them. But I just think that. What are the things you want to do that would feel like less of a waste of your time?

And give yourself a menu to remind yourself of what those things are. And then on the way home, maybe it’s something totally different. It’s listening to a fun audio book. It’s for all these things. You could always have a call. You could schedule your calls during it, but it could be, as I said, listen to a fun audio book.

Call a friend, listen to fun music. Be in silence. Like whatever it needs to [00:26:00] be, to be like, this is what it is. But I just need to inject value into it to the best of my ability and give yourself those menu of things to do. Okay. I hope those helped. There was one more that I wanted to flag. Somebody said their pain point was waiting on others.

Actually, I think there were multiple people. They said waiting on others, other people not being good at time management and future planning, and then somebody else’s. Managing people slash students slash others, not giving me enough turnaround. But falls on me, and I just wanted to throw out that I, I think those were three different ones.

I wanna throw out that I have a podcast episode. It’s episode 28, and it’s called When Your Work Relies on Others, making it Hard to Plan. So check that one out again, episode 28, when your work relies on others, making it hard to plan. Okay, so I hope that that’s helpful. So like a fun little grab bag of things.

I will try and do one of these for personal life a little bit in a few episodes. Maybe next episode we’ll all find out together. [00:27:00] And if you have questions that you want me to address like this, like little pain points or bigger, more detailed questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. Shoot me an email, send me a DM on Instagram, whatever works for you.

I really like talking about these things. I hope they’re useful for you. More importantly, thanks for being here and I’ll catch you in the next episode.

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Three work challenges: getting interrupted on in office days, too ambitious when planning, long commutes that feel like wasted time

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