Fending Off a Colleague Who Keeps Wasting Your Time

This article was published in Harvard Business Review, a credible and valuable source in the field of business.

Author: Dorie Clark

No one intends for their communication to be a burden; it’s not like people leave voice mails with the express purpose of distracting you from your most important work. And yet far too often that’s the result. You receive their missives with dread because each one entails more time expended and new obligations that you’ve been dragooned into.

It’s not malice that leads some people to overtax your inbox or waste your time. Some of your colleagues may simply be less busy—or less efficient—than you are, and their insistence on stopping by your desk to chat or bombarding you with needless information about projects you’re working on together can quickly deaden your productivity.

If you have colleagues who are needlessly demanding too much of your time, here are four strategies you can use to deflect—politely—the entreaties of the less productive.

Clarify the Premise of the Request

A colleague sends you a note: Let’s have lunch on Thursday; there’s a lot to catch up on. How do you respond? If they’re a friend and you’d like to see them, fantastic. But before saying yes, especially if you suspect that they have a tendency to treat your time as an infinite resource, it pays to understand what they’re really asking. You might assume they want to discuss the status of a project you’re collaborating on. But they may have purely social intentions or want to ask your advice about an unrelated matter. You could write back, “I need to confirm some plans on Thursday, so I’ll get back to you ASAP. Just so I’m clear, what would you like to talk about?” Their answer will help you make a good decision about whether you’d really like to allocate your time to them, rather than feeling misled afterward if you misread their intentions.

Don’t Default to a Phone Call

If you’re trying to do important strategic work, even one extra call (or, heaven forbid, a meeting) can have a massively disruptive effect. That’s why it’s important to politely question the premise (which, for many, is simply a default). When one client booked me for a speaking engagement, she requested a phone call to discuss logistics, even though most details had been previously worked out via email.

Instead, I gently pushed back. I replied to confirm the engagement and added, “My phone schedule in the next couple of weeks is rather tight because I’m in the throes of interviews for my next book . . . Wondering if we could tackle logistics via email instead so I can guarantee a faster response time? Please let me know & thanks.” I didn’t shut the door entirely on a call, if it were truly important, but forced her to think about the request. She wrote back and said it would be fine to handle the rest via email, saving at least a half hour, and perhaps more.

Strategically Delay Your Responses

Another certain time waster is a rapid back-and-forth of messages. Some people, if they don’t have more important priorities, get caught up in the dopamine rush of an email chain. Unless the matter is truly urgent, it can be useful to respond now to clear out your inbox, but use a tool such as Boomerang to schedule it to be sent a few hours, or even days, later, depending on the topic being discussed. The time delay often cools their ardor and allows them to focus on other things in the interim.

Have a Conversation

Having a “meta” conversation with your colleague about the way you work together can be awkward, but if his behavior is persistent, you’re going to get annoyed—and your frustration will likely start to seep out in unhelpful, passive-aggressive ways. Instead, bring it up directly and take responsibility for your preferences—and remember, it really is about what helps you work best, rather than him doing something wrong. (Your definition of productivity may not be everyone’s.)

You could say something like, “Frank, you’ve suggested having in-person check-in meetings a few times now, and I wanted to ask you about that. My bias is typically to minimize meetings and try to get as much done on email as possible, but maybe you can tell me a little more about what information you’re looking to share. Is there a way we can make it work for both of us?” He may talk about the importance of building a face-to-face relationship—in which case, you might compromise by sharing updates on email, but both attending the monthly office happy hour together, where you can socialize with multiple colleagues at once. Think about how you can respect his desires without simply yielding to his instinctive, time-intensive preferences.

When it comes to promotions, raises, or the success of our entrepreneurial ventures, we’re never going to be rewarded for the number of emails processed or phone calls completed. What matters is how well we accomplish the most important tasks, and that can’t be done if we’re constantly fending off colleagues who don’t prioritize time management for themselves—and, consequently, for you. Saving even an hour or two a week to focus on our top goals can make a profound difference in our long-term success.

Dorie Clark is a marketing strategist and professional speaker who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is the author of Reinventing You (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013) and Stand Out, and the forthcoming Entrepreneurial You (Harvard Business Review Press, 2017). Learn more about her work at www.dorieclark.com.