When people just won’t leave you alone at work

Horse 1: "And then I told her if she wants a new wagon, well-" Horse 2: "Do you ever shut up?"

There are plenty of tips out there about taking control of your workday that assume you have a door you can close on your office, that your workplace accepts you saying “I’m sorry, could you just email me?” when someone drops by for ten minutes of chatter and thirty seconds of actual work.

Lovely, but this stuff doesn’t work everywhere. What if you’re in a position where you’re expected to be at someone’s beck and call? What if you’re the person who answers phones, so you’re getting interrupted every couple of minutes (or more) while trying to do your work? What if you’re in sales, and you have to talk to clients when it’s convenient for them rather than when it is for you? What if your corporate culture insists you answer emails immediately rather than squaring off an hour for dealing with them so you won’t end up doing nothing but email all day?

Even if you’re not able to control much of your day, there are still some ways to get some control over people who waste your time.

Chatty co-workers

If co-workers are bothering you, this can often be solved with simple attitude. You can remain upbeat and friendly (so no one will think you’re hard to work with) while letting people know they need to move along.

Be honest: tell them you’re busy. If you haven’t tried this, you should. Do it in a friendly but not apologetic way without turning away from what you’re working on. Do not smile. Say in a pleasant but firm tone something like, “Could I just stop you there for a second? I need to get this done as soon as I can.” If they get it, smile and say, “Thanks for understanding” as positive reinforcement.
If that doesn’t work, give them work every time they drop by. Even if you’re not in a position to delegate, you can say, “Hey, Jimbo, the boss wants this done by 2:00, and I’m really pressed. Can you do just a few of these for me?” Even if they refuse to help, they will very quickly learn to avoid you.
Give them five minutes. Have a stopwatch at the ready (you can load one in your browser) and tell them, “Hi, there. Okay, I’ve started this stopwatch – I can give you five minutes of undivided attention, but then I have to get back to what I’m doing.” If you’re the boss, this will make them feel valued and get to the point. If you’re not, it’s off-putting, yet not really something they can criticize.
What if they’re the boss? If you’ve got a boss who won’t leave you alone, you’re probably thinking none of these tips are likely to work (or even safe to try). You’re right. If none of these will work, there’s a slightly different version: when they approach, say cheerfully, “Just one second – I’m tracking every minute of my day now to increase my productivity. Let me just write down the time we’re starting to talk/start my online stopwatch so I’ve got this recorded.” If that doesn’t make them conscious about wasting your time, glance at your stopwatch a few minutes in and laugh and tell them, “Wow, would you believe we’ve been talking for 10 minutes? It just flies by, doesn’t it?”

“Drop everything and do it right now”

Another pet peeve of mine: co-workers and bosses who come to your work area, notice they’re interrupting you while you’re hard at work, ask you to do something and then stand around waiting for you to do it this second. The interruption (when they could’ve just emailed you or voicemailed you what they need) is bad enough. Depending on the complexity of your task, it can take you up to several minutes to find where you were again.

Make them aware of your competing demands. If you work for one boss, and that’s who’s interrupting you, you can say something like, “I was cataloging the doohickies you asked for this morning – do you want me to stop that in order to do this?” If you work for several bosses, there’s no harm in saying, “I’m doing this task for Boss H right now, but I should have this for you before lunch, Boss G.” Sometimes they’ll override you and insist you drop everything to do what they need, but at least you made them work for it. Some of them even get the hint and try to be less demanding in the future.
Add it to your to do list. Sometimes the easiest thing you can do is listen very attentively to what they want, then write it down carefully on your to do list right in front of them, turn back to what you were doing before, smile and say, “I’ll get right on that.” Again, some bosses will override you, but a co-worker has no right to.

Tone of voice

The trick with all these tips is to keep your voice low, calm and pleasant (but not particularly friendly or eager). You don’t ever want to sound hostile or passive-aggressive. If you’re calm – and not just with demanding people, but with everyone – people will want to think the best of you. They’ll feel impressed by how well or quickly you get stuff done rather than focusing on how maybe it could’ve been done five minutes faster if you hadn’t made yourself a coffee at 3:45pm. If someone complains that you’re not jumping when they say to jump, people will believe you when you say you did your best and what the other person wanted was just a bit too much for the time frame they specified.

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