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Block your calendar.
That would imply that people check your calendar before randomly calling. I get calls on Teams even when setting it to appear offline.
Lol I get calls during calls
People call you directly without asking? Ignore them ffs.
Direct co-workers usually ask, it's mostly higher-ups that do it. I guess they think that they're important enough to do it. I absolutely ignore it if I don't have time or are on break.
even those higher ups need to learn that their underlings can only be productive when they aren't being prevented/distracted from being productive.
FYI teams has a setting to block direct calls and an automated voice message for missed calls.
Mine has been set to reject calls and play an automated message letting the caller know to ping me first on teams ever since my company decided it was an amazing idea to forward every employee's office phone number/calls to our God damned teams account.
I despise spam calls and refuse to take calls unless asked first
Don't answer
Periodic office hours are tremendously helpful as well.
Block an hour, once or twice a week, for people to come by an ask you (and your team) about literally anything they want. And open it to everyone at your organization. Have your team stop answering one-off questions and tell people to bring it to office hours.
Team leads and tpms should help with logistics, messaging and hand-slapping.
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I’m 25 years into my career and I’ve only just started to put this into practice. (I say “slightly” because, hey, I’ve been doing this without any advice or mentorship, and, maybe, one can be forgiven for not finding this stuff self-obvious…)
Took a new position and got tired of people scheduling my lunch four out of five days a week. In addition to the meetings before and after, it often meant most of my day in meetings without a break.
So, I threw a tentative meeting for that time slot and the number of lunchtime meetings cratered. Somehow, folks were able to figure out another time or solve it without a meeting. Only twice in four months have I been asked if that “meeting” could be moved.
Needless to say, I’m a convert and would wholeheartedly recommend the practice—of scheduling a self-meeting, for any purpose, be it lunch or even just productive time—to folks well before they hit 25 years.