blackzheep/Shutterstock.com

People Are Increasingly Interrupted at Work, but It’s not All Bad

Interruptions are inevitable – but how they happen matters.

An email pops up on your screen. It’s a client sharing a project update. A Slack message appears. It’s your boss asking a question. A text alert beeps. A colleague wants to know if you will be attending a meeting.

Sound familiar? People are increasingly besieged at work by interruptions through email, messaging apps, social media and in-person encounters.

Interruptions can impair performance in a number of ways, causing lower productivity, more errors and poorer work quality.

Interruptions also often spark negative emotions like annoyance and anxiety. Frequent interruptions may, over time, lead to stressful feelings of overload, irritation and a sense of “time famine” – having too much to do and not enough time.

Yet interruptions are a necessary part of work life, since communication needs are often unpredictable and time-sensitive. And responding to interruptions, whatever channel they come through, has become a core responsibility for most jobs.

As an expert on interpersonal interactions and time use in organizations, I wanted to understand why interruptions are often so stressful. Working with one of my doctoral students, I designed a study that focused on people’s experiences of being interrupted.

Our study, which is currently under review, found that interruptions can actually spark positive rather than negative emotions – given the right circumstances.

Surprisingly positive interruptions

In our study, we asked 35 participants to keep track of their interruptions over the course of an entire workday.

The participants spanned multiple industries and held varied titles. They all worked full-time and used electronic devices regularly as part of their jobs.

Participants recorded details such as what happened during each interruption, who interrupted them and how long each interruption lasted. They also noted the emotions they experienced and jotted down an explanation for those feelings.

As we expected, most participants were interrupted frequently during the day. Collectively, they reported a total of 256 interruptions.

The day after they logged their interruptions, we interviewed the participants. We asked for more information about each interruption to clarify and enrich our understanding of why it had sparked the emotions the participant had recorded. For instance, we probed further about the task the participant was interrupted to do and what else was going on at the time of the interruption.

Given that prior research has overwhelmingly emphasized the negative aspects of interruptions, we were surprised when our study revealed that many interruptions were experienced positively.

Approximately 30% of the interruptions we analyzed were associated with feelings such as excitement and happiness. More than 75% of our participants logged at least one positive interruption.

Intrigued by these unexpected findings, we used our data to figure out what makes an interruption experience good instead of bad.

Time and timing

It turns out that differences in interruption experiences can be explained in large part by people’s beliefs about time.

Just as many of us in Western cultures think of time as a limited, valuable commodity, people who are interrupted at work consider – often unconsciously – the ways in which an interruption forces them to alter how they use their time.

For instance, the participants in our study judged interruptions in terms of their “time worthiness.” Interruptions seen as “time worthy” are more likely to spark positive emotions.

Interruptions are “time worthy” if they involve tasks that are deemed high-priority, relevant to other ongoing projects and clearly within the scope of employees’ jobs. That our participants considered whether an interruption is worth their time makes sense given that people care most about making progress on work that is meaningful.

We also learned that interruption timing plays a big role in people’s emotional responses. Interruptions are generally associated with positive feelings if they are assessed as well-timed.

Well-timed interruptions are those that arise when employees are not deeply absorbed in another task or need a break from their current task. Our findings echo previous studies, which have found that ill-timed disruptions are more likely to hinder work performance.

Finally, shorter interruptions generally spark positive rather than negative emotions. Longer interruptions take up more of the time that people had mentally allocated to planned tasks.

Interruptions may be welcomed if they come from liked or respected coworkers. WAYHOME studio/Shutterstock.com

Relationships and workload matter too

Another finding that emerged from our study was the importance of people’s relationships. Although this may not seem all that surprising, researchers have not yet explored the interpersonal aspects of interruptions.

Individuals feel positive emotions if they like or respect the person who interrupted them. In some cases, personal liking can spark a good experience even if an interruption is seen as “time wasting,” poorly timed or overly long.

Conversely, if individuals dislike or lack respect for the person interrupting them, interruptions are more likely to generate negative feelings. This is particularly true if the interrupter has a history of intruding frequently about unimportant questions or tasks.

We also found that employees’ overall workloads influence interruption experiences. If interruptions occur when they do not have a lot to do, they find it less stressful to work on something unexpected. They can return to planned tasks in the future without fear of missing a deadline or working additional hours.

However, when employees have heavier workloads, they feel strong feelings of time pressure, which means that any interruption will be more likely to cause negative emotions.

What organizations and employees can do

My research on interruptions has made me much more optimistic about the plight of those who face frequent work interruptions.

I believe there are ways to make interruptions better for those on the receiving end. Other management researchers have suggested creating periods of interruption-free time or offering employees a “quota” of uninterrupted time that they can use flexibly.

Our research suggests some additional potentially useful approaches. For instance, organizational training programs could teach employees to be more mindful about how, when and why they interrupt others.

Managers can also model “healthy” interruption behavior. If they reserve interruptions for worthy tasks and provide positive feedback to subordinates who do the same, they can slowly shift the culture of their work groups.

Employees themselves can turn off communication alerts, put on headphones and silence their phones when they are focused on a thought-intensive task or facing a tight deadline.

However, unless leaders and managers openly support this behavior, it will be difficult for individual employees to do so.

The Conversation

This post originally appeared at The Conversation. Follow @ConversationUS on Twitter.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.