How to deal with chatty co-workers

Learn to focus without alienating your colleagues

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of my Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is about how to deal with colleagues who
like to socialize when you have other things you want
or need to do. In my years of writing about

(00:23):
time management, I've learned that some questions come up more
often than others. This is one of the most frequent.
So first, let's be clear, socializing with colleagues is not
inherently a waste of time. Unfortunately, this idea is still
out there. I've met people who have described themselves as
good at time management because they hold themselves off, shut

(00:46):
the office door if they have one, and get stuff done. Indeed,
one person told me as a time management tip that
by refusing all coworker lunch and coffee invitations and keeping
all conversations to the bare minimum, he was able to
avoid bringing work home. This person suggested I share this
strategy so others could benefit from his hard one knowledge.

(01:08):
On some level, I get it, and some people really
do like a strict separation. They don't want to leave
work with anything hanging over them. And some people have
to leave at a certain time in order to say,
make a daycare pickup. Consequently, water cooler chats seem like
an easy thing to cut. It's not a direct deliverable,

(01:29):
but it's also short sighted. Humans are social creatures, and
people want to work with those they know and trust.
Trust is built up through low stakes, repeated interactions, which
is a fancy way of describing those how is your
weekend conversations? Getting promoted into management and then succeeding in
that role isn't just about being good at your job.

(01:53):
It's about having other people want to do their best
work for you, which doesn't happen when they don't trust you.
And even if you never want to move beyond an
individual contributor role, other people have valuable information that they
can choose to share or not. They're more likely to
warn you off troublesome projects or share the name of

(02:13):
someone in accounting who can help with your problem if
you've built up a rapport. Of course, some people seem
to have no boundaries, and sometimes this question comes in
a more sympathetic form. You do your best work in
the morning and would like to spend this time focused
on individual work, but a colleague wants to stop by
to shoot the breeze during this prime window, or you

(02:34):
socialize when you can. But you notice that many of
the most social sorts don't have any limits on their time,
or worse, seem to enjoy being seen as the person
who stays latest. Even if these people don't get going
on much until noon, you'd like to get home and
get on with your life. What's the best way to
manage this situation. One of the easiest ways to focus

(02:56):
if you work in a flexible environment is to do
your focused work away from the office. I want to
interview to CEO who carved out time to do his
focused work in a waffle house in the morning. That way,
when he showed up at work, he could be in
responsive mode and have those conversations in the hallway with
people who wanted to chat with him. If you have

(03:17):
some ability to work from home, do so one to
two days per week and put your focused work on
those days. You'll feel much more relaxed about social interactions
with colleagues when you know you're ahead of the game.
If that's not going to fly, then you can try
some other signal that indicates you are not available. Putting
on a big headset as if you're on the phone

(03:38):
can work even if you're not on the phone. It
makes people pause. If someone's just looking for an easy
entry into a conversation, they'll go elsewhere. Indeed, if you're
managing an office, you might propose that people come up
with some sort of not now signal to make this
matter less awkward. Laura Stack, one of my favorite productivity experts,

(03:59):
has propose the idea of a thinking cap, some sort
of humorous hat you could put on that indicates now
is not a good time. As long as it's not abused,
such a signal could generally be respected. There are other
approaches with anyone. If you really can't talk now, it
helps to indicate a time when the person knows they

(04:19):
can have your full attention. So as simple Hey can't
wait to hear more, I need to get to this
right now. Can we get coffee at eleven might deflect
the conversation to a more convenient moment. If conversations tend
to happen at the end of the day when you're
trying to get out the door, try walking around and
proactively checking in with people earlier, like after lunch. You

(04:42):
can also recognize that socializing sometimes doesn't mean you have
to socialize all the time. Going to lunch with a
group occasionally can allow you to catch up on what's
going on while avoiding going some other days. And you
also might be surprised at how quickly even seemingly chatty
sorts can run out of steam. You could try timing
it at some point. The difference between interrupting someone and

(05:03):
creating an issue and letting the person talk until a
reasonable closing point might be a few minutes. And let's
be honest here, how much are you really getting done
in five minutes If you're just deleting emails? You might
be better off sitting with the conversation, even if it's
not terribly convenient, and letting the other person feel heard.

(05:23):
I've realized this with one of my kids, actually, who
likes to have talks with me late at night. These
requests for the talks tend to come right as I've
picked up a book and after dealing with other people
during the day, part of me really wants to sit
in silence, But I've learned that almost always the talk
is done in five minutes. Then my kid is back
to his own book and I can go back to mine,

(05:46):
So I just have the chat and he feels much
happier within reason at work. Maybe you can do so too,
low cost, big payoff in the meantime. This is Laura.
Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of
our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.

(06:10):
You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four, then Breakfast
p o D. You can also shoot me an email
at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeart media dot com. That

(06:30):
Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks
so much, I look forward to staying in touch. Before
Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

(07:00):
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