All these things can cause errors that need to be corrected at the cost of even more time.There is the distress and fatigue of having to make up for time lost. There’s frustration at having to rebuild them, which dissipates the energy that work thrives on.There’s the time wasted reassembling your thoughts and resources.There’s also loss of momentum due to the work stoppage.There’s the interruption itself, throwing you off task.Until you recognize that extra loss, you won’t know which Time Bandits take the most time. Interruptions are insidious because they cause so much collateral time loss. But it doesn’t tell the big story – how much of your time they consumed. That tells you the source of your interruptions, and how many. Choose a week that looks to be “ordinary” and when someone interrupts you, note their name on a form you keep handy or on an app. Catch those Time Bandits, and you can restore most of your stolen time. That is, for most people, probably only 20 percent of their Time Bandits account for 80 percent of recoverable time. The 80/20 rule probably governs here, too. Our research shows that workers at all levels report losing three to five hours of productive time every day due to unwanted, unneeded, and unproductive interruptions. When you don’t protect your time, you don’t just lose a minute or two. These Time Bandits operate by the simple means of interrupting you. Somebody is stealing your time, your most valuable, finite resource.

Time bandit sold