Excuse me. Hello? I’m sorry to interrupt, but did you know 28% of your day is taking care of tangents related to interruptions and on average you’re only spending about 11 minutes of your day focusing on something before being interrupted? Annoying, right? And worse, it’s bad for productivity.

Jeff Davidson, author of The Work-Life Balance Expert, speaker, and thought leader on work-life balance issues recently wrote a piece on interruptions and how to handle the disruptions. He cites fear as the major reason we allow for interruptions. Fear that we’re not available for our employees. Fear that an opportunity will zoom by as as we focus on our present task. Don’t cower, Jeff says. It’s ok to shut the door, to let a distraction go unanswered. Jeff says the key is to keep connected without getting off-task. Check your emails and voice mails periodically but return to the task at hand.

You can read the full text here.