We've all been there when we just need a question answering, and we assume it won't take someone long to answer it. But have you ever considered the cost of a "quick question" and how you could inadvertently impact someone's focused flow and therefore their productivity. By the end of this blog the aim is to get you to question yourself before you ask a quick question. In most cases it would be better for you to find the information yourself.
What is a quick question?
Sometimes you want information either quickly, or you think the answer will be easier to get from someone else who has the knowledge. The aim is for these to be "quick" and non-intrusive questions. Quick questions are often used to clarify information, confirm facts, or resolve small uncertainties efficiently.
What is the impact?
When asking a question (no matter if it's quick or not) there are a couple of things that happen to those people answering it:
- interrupting their current workflow
- context switching
Let's dive into what this means:
Interrupting their current workflow
It has been proven that when people are in a deep focus of work they are the most focused and productive than at any other time. When you get started on a task it takes on average 10-15 minutes to get into the deep focus needed to be productive, and interestingly research shows it can take 23 minutes to regain focus after an interruption.
Context switching
This is the act of switching your thought process away from your current focus to something else, and can be incredibly impactful. There is a lot of amazing information and references that can be found in this research but to summarise:
- Distraction no matter how small will always impact productivity and focus
- Relative task dominance will often mean you focus on the "easy" task versus the "complicated" one that may need more focus
- Context switching takes over a switching cost, as well as lingering information from the previous task
In general context switching is a bad thing, not in all cases but every context switch has a cost.
When to Ask a Quick Question?
Before we look at when, let's look at what to do to avoid it:
Find the answer yourself
Before asking you should always try and find the information yourself, if this information is not easily available then I'll have a blog on that in the future, or you can contact me and I can help you get this setup. If you can find the information yourself then you'll save the need of a quick question, and if you can't then you will have more information to help the person answering the question with context to reduce the context switching cost.
Understand what you're sacrificing
Before asking the question understand what impact this is going to have, this could be knowing what that team or individual is working on. It may also be helpful to know the working patterns of the team/individual, this could then lead to you to asking at the start or end of the day when you know you might not be in deep focus.
Be patient
Be clear when asking a question on the urgency, and be honest with yourself by asking "is it really urgent, or just urgent to you". This attitude will then give whoever is answering the ability to return to the question when the cost of context switching is lower.
Assign someone to be interruptible
If quick questions are a regular occurrence and need quick responses then reserve someone in the team to answer those questions. This will allow other members of the team to stay focused, but this should only be temporary and for every question answered documentation should be provided or created so the next time people can find (and be encouraged to find) the answer themselves.
Last resort
The only time in my opinion a quick question is justified is when:
- it's truly urgent (e.g. a critical issue needs resolving)
- there is no information available anywhere
Summary
In general quick questions should be avoided and instead focus should be put on documentation and encouraging others to find their answers themselves. If you follow this method then you'll increase focus and productivity will improve. So next time you want to ask a quick question think about the above and maybe save someone the context switching cost.