What to Do When an Interruption Eats Up Your Work Day

By: Stephanie Tuesday December 6, 2022 comments Tags: Time management, Mindset, Customer retention

Don’t you just love those times when technical difficulties add an extra EIGHT hours of work to your week? 😅 😫 😭 

That’s what happened to me recently. Here’s how I handled the unexpected and unwanted interruption:

1. I used my frustration as fuel. 

I was fed up. I was PISSED. I didn’t even feel the urge to take a break until I got this problem out of my hair – the first day the problem showed up, I wound up working until around 11:00 p.m.

Instead of prematurely forcing myself to feel positive about the situation, or forcing myself to do something else when I REALLY wanted to work on this specific issue, I used my irritation as motivation to keep on working on the problem until it was solved.

(To be clear, I’m not making a blanket recommendation to work until almost midnight, but if you’re motivated and mad, you might as well ride that wave!)

2. I prioritized.

This problem with my payment processor was stopping me from receiving payments from someone who was actively ready to pay me, so that took priority.

Whenever crap comes up and you need to choose which activities to focus on and which ones to postpone, I recommend prioritizing the ones that most directly affect your ability to serve your clients well and get income.

Providing a good experience to a client who’s actively ready to pay you is more important than creating content for people who MIGHT pay you at some undetermined time in the future.

3. I forgave myself.

Some of the activities I’d planned to do that week had to be postponed until the following week, because the hours I'd planned to spend on them got eaten up by this new, high-priority task.

I decided not to beat myself up for that, because for one thing, beating yourself up doesn’t help, and for another, I know I used that time productively, on something important that needed to be done.

Sometimes life happens, and we need to let ourselves adapt instead of punishing ourselves for not conforming to a scenario that’s no longer applicable.

4. I had income methods that would accommodate that distraction.

Thankfully, not all of my income is dependent on me actively working, so when interruptions like that come up, they don’t completely scuttle my ability to make money.

I have a couple pre-recorded online classes that people can use and benefit from without my active involvement, so I can keep helping people, and earning income, even when I’m busy fighting with payment processors.

If you’re curious, you can see those classes here.

If you want to turn your knowledge into a pre-recorded training program, a live group coaching program, or a hybrid of both, so your income and impact aren’t dependent on spending a large portion of your day helping one client at a time, I’d be happy to walk you through that process!

You can get my step-by-step walkthrough in ebook or audio/video form.

Get the ebook               Get the audio/video course

About the Author: Stephanie

Stephanie is a writer and coaching program design specialist. She helps coaches to design lucrative and life-changing group programs, so they can help more people, make more money, and have more time freedom.