The second largest time waster is drop-in visitors. People who just pop in to chat and say, “Hi, how you doin’? Can we hang out for a minute?” Now whether you are just general staff, you are mid-management or you are an executive is irrelevant. You need to have quiet time during your day for concentrated effort without being disturbed.
You need to keep people out of your office. There needs to be a way that you can shut your door and say, “Right now is my time. I’ll talk to you at X o’clock.” and then you give them a time. You set that. The only exceptions to this are if the building is burning down or someone has died, then it’s okay to have them interrupt you.
But unless there’s some major tragedy that’s occurred, you need that quiet time for concerted effort. Don’t allow people to disturb you continually. Drop-in visitors can eat up your time.
I have a friend, who’s an attorney, who oftentimes when someone just pops in on him, will talk to them for just a moment. Then he stands up and says, “Oh, just one more thing before you go, what about…” And then he asks them a question about something and says, “Well nice to see you, good luck. Bye.” And he literally marches them out. It works. I’ve tried it, it’s amazing.
Some people say, “Well that’s being rude.” It is not rude. Your time is valuable. If you want to talk to them for a moment that’s great but drop-in visitors can consume your time.
Have you ever had somebody pop in and take up 10 or 15 or even 20 minutes of your time when you really needed to get things done? Unless you work in a cave by yourself you’ve had that happen... So you need to have strategies. Specify quiet time. Here’s what my open door policy is “…and one more thing before you go.”
What is also works well when someone stops in, you can always say, “Gosh, right now I’ve got this deadline but I really would like to talk to you. So how about this afternoon at 3:00, would 3:00 work for you? Great. Let’s talk at 3:00. That’ll give me a couple of hours to get done what I need to. We can touch base then.”
Most people if you do that, and you’re very pleasant about it, will think “He isn’t trying to run me off. He does want to talk to me. We’ll talk this afternoon when you have more time.” or, they will reply, “Gosh, no. This afternoon won’t work for me, but how about tomorrow morning first thing? Let’s touch base before we begin.”
If they say, “I just really need to discuss this immediately. It should only take me 30 seconds.” You could smile and reply, “Great you have 30 seconds so what is it?” They tell you, you can then say. “Good. If you need anything more, let’s talk tomorrow.” Drop-in visitors will waste your time if you don’t take control. You need to manage the situation.