The phone rings! Something urgent has come up!
Your attention needs to be elsewhere. You need to switch gear and get the urgent item done asap. What this means is that you won’t have time to finish the other task today. So my question is, how do you leave a task mid-way?
What to do?
How do you remember to come back to it at another time? And how do you recall where you were up to?
I was talking with a client recently who this happens to an awful lot. Unfortunately, They aren’t able to turn their phone off for long stints during the day so we had to come up with another solution. What we developed was a routine that would (eventually) evolve into a habit. Whenever they found themselves interrupted they made a quick note on a Post It and stuck it to the side of their monitor. Once they hung up the phone they were reminded of where they were up to by the Post It. They then had two options, allocate the new task to their calendar and continue on with the first task. Or take a moment, make sense of where they had stopped, flesh out the note and pop that into their calendar.
Deserves attention
If we leave something unallocated and untethered to a time it won’t get the time and attention it deserves. It’ll be left by the wayside. Interruptions can take us off course for the day so it’s important to take a moment and align yourself with the new direction.
Let me know, how do you leave a task mid-way?