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Poll: Are you often interrupted during working hours? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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In particular by my wife, who has always something urgent to tell me, which means she phones me at least 5 times in the morning, 3 in the afternoon, and in the afternoon I also have kids...
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 16:31
Spanish to English
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My working life revolves around interruptions and similar distractions. Right now I have a friend visiting for a week and he's wandering around muttering and looking for his sunglasses.... which is why I'm commenting here and not working on the pile of stuff I have pending.
This afternoon I need to go and re-insure a car, which will steal some more of my working time too... and tomorrow I've arranged to go and help a friend do the same... etc etc etc.
[Edited at 2014-10-28 09... See more My working life revolves around interruptions and similar distractions. Right now I have a friend visiting for a week and he's wandering around muttering and looking for his sunglasses.... which is why I'm commenting here and not working on the pile of stuff I have pending.
This afternoon I need to go and re-insure a car, which will steal some more of my working time too... and tomorrow I've arranged to go and help a friend do the same... etc etc etc.
[Edited at 2014-10-28 09:19 GMT]
They say that procrastination is the thief of time, but for me the worst interruptions to my working routine are things like dental or medical appointments. On many occasions, I have attended 9 am checkups and spent 3-4 hours in the waiting room before being seen, which means I basically lose the whole morning, i.e. half a day's work. Nowadays I tend to take a laptop so that I can work at least on something while waiting.
[Edited at 2014-10-28 15:04 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Muriel Vasconcellos (X) 
United States
Local time: 07:31
Spanish to English
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That's why I prefer to work at night.
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-Calls by potential customers - I don't know if those are interruptions in a true sense of the word.
- These automatic adverts that either spew out a canned message, or are silent for 10 seconds before hanging up because you are supposed to call back so that you "requested" the advert - or a live person advertising duct cleaning and the like.
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BrenElKha (X)
United States
Local time: 09:31
English to Spanish
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My husband calls me at least 4 times a day. I don't have children, but I have a spoiled-rotten cockatiel who requires a lot of attention .
[Edited at 2014-10-28 11:08 GMT]
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I have trained the family to keep it short and sharp or preferably wait until the evenings... but CLIENTS...
They seem to have a conspiracy! The more rushed I am trying to meet a tight deadline, the more they find two forgotten sentences that they needed yesterday, or need to negotiate the next tight deadline.
And they always seem to come in clusters.
They don't officially know each other, but if one of them starts, a couple more seem to send mails soon afterwards... See more I have trained the family to keep it short and sharp or preferably wait until the evenings... but CLIENTS...
They seem to have a conspiracy! The more rushed I am trying to meet a tight deadline, the more they find two forgotten sentences that they needed yesterday, or need to negotiate the next tight deadline.
And they always seem to come in clusters.
They don't officially know each other, but if one of them starts, a couple more seem to send mails soon afterwards.
No, I am not superstitious... I had better get back to work while I have the chance!
[Edited at 2014-10-28 13:42 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| Staggered interruptions | Oct 28, 2014 |
I was told that men are single-tasking, while women are multitasking. The woman who told me that is a chemistry teacher. She said it was natural for her to stir the food cooking on the oven with her left hand, talk on the cordless phone held between her shoulder and ear (couldn't she use the speakerphone?), and grade her students' tests with her right hand, all at once. Yet she reckoned that as a man I'd be able to do only one thing at a time.
So whatever I'm doing often gets interr... See more I was told that men are single-tasking, while women are multitasking. The woman who told me that is a chemistry teacher. She said it was natural for her to stir the food cooking on the oven with her left hand, talk on the cordless phone held between her shoulder and ear (couldn't she use the speakerphone?), and grade her students' tests with her right hand, all at once. Yet she reckoned that as a man I'd be able to do only one thing at a time.
So whatever I'm doing often gets interrupted. Then the interruption gets interrupted by something else, and so on. It seldom goes beyond the fifth level of interruption, but then I have to backtrack all interruptions, handle them one at a time, until I can get back to what I was actually doing. Now and then I have self-interruptions too, when I suddenly recall something that I should have done already.
Anyway, as I love variety and hate boredom from routine, such shifts boost my productivity. Every time I (re)focus on something, it gets my full attention, perhaps with more vigor than before, until the next interruption comes by.
That's how we do it in Mars. In Venus it's quite different.
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I have strict rules in place, and I don't categorise an e-mail notification as disruptive.
My main source of interruption and disturbance is me.
Philippe
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Georgia Morg (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:31
Portuguese to English
Muriel Vasconcellos wrote:
That's why I prefer to work at night.
And that's why in my case I like to work in the very early morning. I have been known to start working at 4am........
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Natalia Pedrosa
Spain
Local time: 16:31
Member (2012)
English to Spanish
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And that's why in my case I like to work in the very early morning. I have been known to start working at 4am.......
I tend to work from 6 to 12 or so and this way I have almost all day left to do other things, although late in the evening (say 7 or 9 pm) I tend to resume work to quieten my restless conscience.
Cheers to all.
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Mario Chavez (X)
Local time: 10:31
English to Spanish
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| Interrupted...like now? | Oct 28, 2014 |
Yes, your poll interrupted my really boring workflow this morning! Grrr.
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mgodfrey
United States
Local time: 09:31
| I so agree with it. | Oct 28, 2014 |
Muriel Vasconcellos wrote:
That's why I prefer to work at night.
Sometimes overnight. But I really don't mind as long as I can have uninterrupted hours.
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