Sometimes I write blog posts inside email drafts at work.

Is it the best place to write them?

Maybe, or maybe not. (and for the sake of copy/pasting and formatting, definitely not)

Every once in a while, I have a thought or idea that I’d like to explore and turn into a blog post.

But, if I don’t get the draft out right away, I’ll forget it.

So I’ll write it in an email.

Why not jump straight to the Medium drafts tool and get to work?

Because people reading my writing over my shoulder is a little annoying while I’m in the middle of a thought. Also, we have an office environment that often comes with interruptions.

At least what I’m doing looks very important if I’m writing something in the body of an email.

But that’s a fundamental problem with many workplaces that we’re all (hopefully) trying to improve.

Unfortunately, it can be baked into the culture of an organization that interruptions are acceptable. Especially if leadership engage in that kind of behavior.

Interruptions of creatives while they’re “in the zone” or in a “flow state” account for a ton of lost hours of productivity. For some people, it can take 10–15 minutes after an interruption to even return to a similar head-space.

Think of all the time that it takes to get focused again after someone interrupts you. Imagine if people would leave you alone just because they actually got the context clues of what you were doing and were considerate enough to heed them.

You’d get so much more done if they realized that what you were working on was important.

And that’s another fundamental problem.

Some types of activities are considered by many people in many workplaces to be “interruptible”.

If it looks like you’re writing a long email, that might be okay, and you’ll be left alone.

But if it looks like you’re organizing documents and filing them, for some reason someone might interrupt you.

Both of those activities are work.

If one of the developers has their headphones in and have two screens of code up and are typing away, don’t interrupt them.

But if someone is sketching out basic wireframes and content layout for a product site “they’re just drawing”.

Both of those activities are work too!

If people are interrupting you and it isn’t a welcome relief that they’re doing it, they’re not respecting your time, your organization’s time, or your personal environment. You’re the person working, and you should be in control of the majority of interruptions to their day.

Now, you might be thinking: “What if I need to tell them something important?”.

Think about what level of importance your thing really has.

Is it truly urgent; an ultimate emergency?

Then yes, but the building should be on fire, the client’s website should be down and the zombies should be knocking on the door.

Most other things can be sent via a message or email.

Just because it’s your thing doesn’t mean it has the same level of importance or is as contextually relevant to the person you want to interrupt.

I could honestly rant about interruptions all day, but that would tear me away from work, and I only gave myself 10 minutes at lunch to write this up.

It was a blissful, uninterrupted 10 minutes though.

This was originally posted on Medium.