Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to deal with colleagues who
Speaker 1: like to socialize when you have other things you want
Speaker 1: or need to do. In my years of writing about
Speaker 1: time management, I've learned that some questions come up more
Speaker 1: often than others. This is one of the most frequent.
Speaker 1: So first, let's be clear, socializing with colleagues is not
Speaker 1: inherently a waste of time. Unfortunately, this idea is still
Speaker 1: out there. I've met people who have described themselves as
Speaker 1: good at time management because they hold themselves off, shut
Speaker 1: the office door if they have one, and get stuff done. Indeed,
Speaker 1: one person told me as a time management tip that
Speaker 1: by refusing all coworker lunch and coffee invitations and keeping
Speaker 1: all conversations to the bare minimum, he was able to
Speaker 1: avoid bringing work home. This person suggested I share this
Speaker 1: strategy so others could benefit from his hard one knowledge.
Speaker 1: On some level, I get it, and some people really
Speaker 1: do like a strict separation. They don't want to leave
Speaker 1: work with anything hanging over them. And some people have
Speaker 1: to leave at a certain time in order to say,
Speaker 1: make a daycare pickup. Consequently, water cooler chats seem like
Speaker 1: an easy thing to cut. It's not a direct deliverable,
Speaker 1: but it's also short sighted. Humans are social creatures, and
Speaker 1: people want to work with those they know and trust.
Speaker 1: Trust is built up through low stakes, repeated interactions, which
Speaker 1: is a fancy way of describing those how is your
Speaker 1: weekend conversations? Getting promoted into management and then succeeding in
Speaker 1: that role isn't just about being good at your job.
Speaker 1: It's about having other people want to do their best
Speaker 1: work for you, which doesn't happen when they don't trust you.
Speaker 1: And even if you never want to move beyond an
Speaker 1: individual contributor role, other people have valuable information that they
Speaker 1: can choose to share or not. They're more likely to
Speaker 1: warn you off troublesome projects or share the name of
Speaker 1: someone in accounting who can help with your problem if
Speaker 1: you've built up a rapport. Of course, some people seem
Speaker 1: to have no boundaries, and sometimes this question comes in
Speaker 1: a more sympathetic form. You do your best work in
Speaker 1: the morning and would like to spend this time focused
Speaker 1: on individual work, but a colleague wants to stop by
Speaker 1: to shoot the breeze during this prime window, or you
Speaker 1: socialize when you can. But you notice that many of
Speaker 1: the most social sorts don't have any limits on their time,
Speaker 1: or worse, seem to enjoy being seen as the person
Speaker 1: who stays latest. Even if these people don't get going
Speaker 1: on much until noon, you'd like to get home and
Speaker 1: get on with your life. What's the best way to
Speaker 1: manage this situation. One of the easiest ways to focus
Speaker 1: if you work in a flexible environment is to do
Speaker 1: your focused work away from the office. I want to
Speaker 1: interview to CEO who carved out time to do his
Speaker 1: focused work in a waffle house in the morning. That way,
Speaker 1: when he showed up at work, he could be in
Speaker 1: responsive mode and have those conversations in the hallway with
Speaker 1: people who wanted to chat with him. If you have
Speaker 1: some ability to work from home, do so one to
Speaker 1: two days per week and put your focused work on
Speaker 1: those days. You'll feel much more relaxed about social interactions
Speaker 1: with colleagues when you know you're ahead of the game.
Speaker 1: If that's not going to fly, then you can try
Speaker 1: some other signal that indicates you are not available. Putting
Speaker 1: on a big headset as if you're on the phone
Speaker 1: can work even if you're not on the phone. It
Speaker 1: makes people pause. If someone's just looking for an easy
Speaker 1: entry into a conversation, they'll go elsewhere. Indeed, if you're
Speaker 1: managing an office, you might propose that people come up
Speaker 1: with some sort of not now signal to make this
Speaker 1: matter less awkward. Laura Stack, one of my favorite productivity experts,
Speaker 1: has propose the idea of a thinking cap, some sort
Speaker 1: of humorous hat you could put on that indicates now
Speaker 1: is not a good time. As long as it's not abused,
Speaker 1: such a signal could generally be respected. There are other
Speaker 1: approaches with anyone. If you really can't talk now, it
Speaker 1: helps to indicate a time when the person knows they
Speaker 1: can have your full attention. So as simple Hey can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear more, I need to get to this
Speaker 1: right now. Can we get coffee at eleven might deflect
Speaker 1: the conversation to a more convenient moment. If conversations tend
Speaker 1: to happen at the end of the day when you're
Speaker 1: trying to get out the door, try walking around and
Speaker 1: proactively checking in with people earlier, like after lunch. You
Speaker 1: can also recognize that socializing sometimes doesn't mean you have
Speaker 1: to socialize all the time. Going to lunch with a
Speaker 1: group occasionally can allow you to catch up on what's
Speaker 1: going on while avoiding going some other days. And you
Speaker 1: also might be surprised at how quickly even seemingly chatty
Speaker 1: sorts can run out of steam. You could try timing
Speaker 1: it at some point. The difference between interrupting someone and
Speaker 1: creating an issue and letting the person talk until a
Speaker 1: reasonable closing point might be a few minutes. And let's
Speaker 1: be honest here, how much are you really getting done
Speaker 1: in five minutes If you're just deleting emails? You might
Speaker 1: be better off sitting with the conversation, even if it's
Speaker 1: not terribly convenient, and letting the other person feel heard.
Speaker 1: I've realized this with one of my kids, actually, who
Speaker 1: likes to have talks with me late at night. These
Speaker 1: requests for the talks tend to come right as I've
Speaker 1: picked up a book and after dealing with other people
Speaker 1: during the day, part of me really wants to sit
Speaker 1: in silence, But I've learned that almost always the talk
Speaker 1: is done in five minutes. Then my kid is back
Speaker 1: to his own book and I can go back to mine,
Speaker 1: So I just have the chat and he feels much
Speaker 1: happier within reason at work. Maybe you can do so too,
Speaker 1: low cost, big payoff in the meantime. This is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four, then Breakfast
Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeart media dot com. That
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, I look forward to staying in touch. Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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Speaker 1: One