5 Helpful Tips To Handle Interruptions at Work & Home

Focus is hard enough on its own when you have an ADHD brain. Add in a chatty coworker, a partner who works from home, or an open office where everyone assumes you’re always available? That is next-level distraction.

So what can we do? How can we handle interruptions kindly – but clearly – when they arise, especially when it’s someone we care about?

That’s exactly what we’re exploring in episode 302 of the I’m Busy Being Awesome podcast.

Listen to the episode above or stream it on your favorite podcasting app. Prefer to read? No problem! Keep scrolling for a summary of the key takeaways.

In episode 302, we’re unpacking:

• Why ADHD brains struggle with focus interruptions
• Why it’s extra hard when the distraction is a person
• And how we can build simple systems to protect our focus without shutting people out.

If this is something you’ve been navigating, stick with me—we’ve got lots of great strategies to make this work for us.

Episode 302: 5 Tips To Handle Interruptions at Work & Home (Transcript)

Today we are talking about interruptions and navigating interruptions with an ADHD brain.

This episode was inspired by a question from one of my clients a few weeks ago in my small group coaching program for ADHD brains called We’re Busy Being Awesome. I thought her question was so relatable that I had to turn it into a topic for the podcast here.

This is such a common experience.

And while her question was about life at home with her husband, this can apply in so many other settings… open office spaces, coworking environments, roommates, even chatty colleagues who love to pop in and chat.

5 Strategies To Deal With Interruptions

Let’s walk through a few ADHD-friendly options you can try that will help prevent interruptions in your day. Whether you’re working from home, have super chatty coworkers, or you deal with an open-concept office you’ll find some helpful tips that can help you out.

1. The “Do Not Disturb” Signal

Sometimes, the simplest strategies are the most effective.

ADHD brains love clear, external cues—and visual signals are a great way to say “please hold that thought” without needing to say a word.

Ideas for visual signals:

• Noise-canceling headphones (they’re a cue and a sound blocker!)
• A small desk light: red = focus mode, green = open for chat
• A sticky note that says “In Focus Mode – Check in later!”
• Having an open or closed door.
• Setting your Slack, Teams, or Zoom status to “Deep work time – checking messages at 2:00”

What matters most here is clear communication.

Let the people around you know what your signal means, why it helps, and when you’ll reconnect.

“When I’ve got the [headphones/light/sticky note] on, I’m in the zone. But I’ll check in when I’m done!”

2. The “Catch-All” for Their Thoughts

Some people (especially those of us with ADHD!) need to offload thoughts the moment we have them—otherwise, our working memory checks out, and the thought is gone.

But we can support that need for communication without sacrificing our focus.

Try creating a catch-all system where those thoughts can land:

• A shared Google Doc, Notion board, or Slack channel for non-urgent questions
• A whiteboard or notebook near your workspace
• A voice memo app like Voxer or WhatsApp for quick verbal dumps

This way, the person can still express what they need and you get to stay focused.

Bonus tip: Make sure they know when you’ll check the list so it doesn’t feel like a black hole.

3. Setting Dedicated Check-In Times

What I’ve found is that people are less likely to interrupt if they’re not stuck in waiting mode, wondering when (or if) they’ll ever hear from you.

When people know when they’ll get your full attention, it’s often easier to wait.

At home, you might tell your partner:

“Let’s check in over lunch or at 4:00 to catch up.”

At work:

“I’ll be heads-down from 9 to 11, but I’m open after that if anything comes up.”

For virtual spaces:

• Use auto-replies or Slack statuses to reinforce your focus blocks.
• Even setting 10–15 minute “chat windows” in the afternoon or virtual office hours like Cal Newport talks about reduce mid-task interruptions significantly.

4. The “Emergency vs. Non-Emergency” System

As much as our brains want to fight this fact, we also know that not all interruptions are created equal.

And sometimes, just like us, people honestly don’t know what’s urgent unless we spell it out.

One effective strategy can be co-creating a list of what’s urgent and what’s not with your team, your roommate, your family, etc.

Urgent:

• “The house is on fire.”
• “Someone’s locked out.”
• “A time-sensitive decision can’t move forward without you.”

Not Urgent:

• “You’ve got to see this meme.”
• “Random thought about vacation.”
• “Did you order oat milk?”

At home, you might use a filter like:

If it’s something that can wait 30 minutes, can we jot it down or drop it in our shared doc to talk about at lunch?

At work, try:

If it’s urgent, definitely ping me. If not, can we add it to the team agenda or check in during office hours?

5. Knowing When to Focus on Interruption-Friendly Tasks

Finally, sometimes interruptions are just… going to happen.

Whether it’s your 5-year-old home from kindergarten, a high-traffic office, it’s the week before finals and your office hours are packed, it’s not always realistic to expect long, uninterrupted blocks.

So instead of fighting it, work with it.

Save lower-focus tasks for high-interruption times:

• Organizing your digital files
• Unsubscribing from emails in your email inbox
• Reviewing notes or brainstorming ideas

And block off your quieter times—whenever that happens to be—for the deep, creative work that needs more focus.

Why Are Interruptions So Challenging for ADHD Brains?

Let’s take a moment to explore what’s really going on when we get interrupted mid-task, and why it can be so tough to get back on track.

Because it’s not just about someone popping in with a quick question. For ADHD brains, a lot is happening behind the scenes that makes these moments especially disruptive.

1. Task Inertia

Getting started is hard enough.

So once we do get going, we want to stay in motion.

Interruptions break that momentum, and it can take a long time—sometimes a really long time—to get it back.

2. Working Memory Challenges

If we get pulled away mid-thought, there’s a good chance we’ll lose the thread entirely.

It’s not just “Where was I?”—it’s “What was I even doing?”

That fragile train of thought disappears faster than we can write it down.

3. Time Blindness

When we’re interrupted, it might seem like we’ll be right back to work in five minutes.

But time is slippery.

Before we know it, we’ve been in conversation for half an hour, and the task seems miles away.

4. Dopamine Hijacking

Here’s the thing—interruptions are often interesting.

Whether it’s a funny story, a vent session, or just someone wanting to connect, our brains light up.

And if we’re working on something that’s low-stimulation? The distraction wins. Every time.

5. Unpredictable Interruptions & Waiting Mode

I don’t know about you, but when I know I can be interrupted at any minute, my brain gets caught in waiting mode.

When I can’t predict when someone might pop in, it’s super hard for me to settle into deep work.

Honestly, even the possibility of being interrupted can keep me from entering focus mode. This was so true for me when I would hold office hours as a professor. I could never drop into my writing because my brain was always scanning for whether or not a student might pop in or a colleague might have a question.

6. Background Noise and Conversations

Tuning things out isn’t always easy.

So even if we’re not directly involved in the conversation, nearby chatter or office noise can tug at our attention over and over again.

It’s like trying to write a report with five radio stations playing at once.

7. The Pressure to Be Available

Whether we’re in an open office or working alongside someone at home, there’s often this unspoken expectation to be “available.”

And for many of us, saying “Can we talk later?” brings up guilt or fear of seeming rude.

So we pause our focus—and sometimes don’t make it back.

So that’s what’s going on under the surface from a focus and attention perspective—why interruptions are so disruptive on a cognitive level.

Emotional Side of Interruptions

It’s not just about executive functions, dopamine or working memory. There’s also an emotional weight that comes with these moments.

When we get interrupted mid-focus or when we’re trying to protect our time and space, there’s often a whole mix of emotions involved, and they can catch us off guard.

Interruptions—especially when they come from people we care about—can bring up frustration, guilt, even resentment.

And often, we’re trying to navigate all of that while also just trying to finish a task.

Let’s walk through a few of the emotional layers that show up most often:

Guilt

We don’t want to seem rude. We don’t want to let someone down. We want to be approachable, helpful, and available, especially in office settings where there’s pressure to be a “team player,” or at home when we’re trying to be a supportive partner or parent.

So when we make a request—even something simple and kind like, “Can we talk later?”—it can stir up guilt.

We’re telling ourselves things like:

• “I’m being rude.”
• “They’re going to be disappointed.”
• “I’m not being helpful enough.”

This is where our people-pleasing tendencies often kick in.

We might say “sure” or stop what we’re doing before we’ve even thought it through—just to avoid that uncomfortable feeling of guilt.

Even when part of us knows we need to stay focused, guilt can override that logic fast.

Frustration

There’s also that moment where we finally—finally—drop into focus… and then someone interrupts us.

Cue frustration.

We know how rare and precious those focus windows can be – especially on the tasks that take so much self-coaching and talking the toddler brain into doing some work, and then – bam – that focus is gone.

It’s a bit like that person popped the focus bubble we worked so hard to create.

If you’re like me, most of the time you know that person was not trying to interrupt you.

They didn’t even know you were in focus. They certainly didn’t know how hard you worked to get into flow. But when we’re thinking to ourselves, they shouldn’t have done this. They should have known. It shouldn’t take me this long to get focused.

All of these thoughts are arguing with reality, which is the key source of frustration.

Resentment

When interruptions happen often, especially without acknowledgment, it’s easy to start thinking that people don’t care about our own needs.

It’s easy to start thinking, why doesn’t anyone care about me? I always stop to help them. I’m always conscious of their schedules. Why can’t they do the same for me? It’s like they don’t even see me?

Everyone else gets to share their thoughts, take up space, and be heard, but when we need time to focus, it’s negotiable.

And as most resentment does … it quietly builds over time.

If you’re like me, it can unintentionally leak out in other ways—snarky comments, shutting down, withdrawing from conversations—sometimes without even fully realizing why.

Reciprocal Interruptions

Here’s the twist—we do this too! Sometimes, we are the chatty ones, interrupting someone else’s focus.

Sometimes we’re the ones knocking on the door, popping our heads into a meeting, or sharing a random story mid-task.

I offer this simply because I find it to be a very helpful reminder that we’re all beautifully human. It helps release some of that tension.

It reminds us: this isn’t about blaming. It’s about awareness. When we understand what’s happening—it becomes easier to create systems that support everyone.

So now that we’ve named the emotional side—guilt, frustration, resentment, and even those moments when we are the interrupter—what do we do with that?

How do we support ourselves in a way that protects our focus, honors our relationships, and gives our brains the structure and clarity they crave?

That’s where we turn to strategies. And not rigid, one-size-fits-all systems, but flexible, realistic supports we can experiment with, so we can find what actually works for us.

We might not always know when focus is going to strike, but when it does, we want to be ready to protect it.

Final Thoughts & Next Steps

Now, we’re probably not going to eliminate every interruption. And that’s okay. If we did, it would mean we didn’t have people around, which can certainly be nice at times…but not forever.

Most of us want some level of connection. So, if we are maintaining a connection with people we love, interruptions will happen.

Life is still life. People will still pop in. Thoughts will still pop out of our heads. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to these interruptions. There are ways to work with these moments instead of fighting against them.

There are ways to protect our focus and stay connected to the people around us, and when we approach this with curiosity, self-compassion, and just one small change at a time? That’s where the magic happens.

If any part of this episode resonated with you, whether it was the frustration of getting pulled out of focus, or the people-pleasing guilt that sneaks in when you try to set a boundary, I first want you to know:

You’re not alone.

And there are tools that can work for you.

Try one strategy this week

Maybe it’s…

• Headphones to indicate you’re in focus mode
• Setting a check-in time with your partner
• Catching yourself the next time you start to interrupt someone else’s focus and ask yourself → is this urgent, or can it wait until our 3:00 meeting?

Start small. Experiment. Adjust. Because that’s how we build systems that stick—with flexibility, not perfection.

All right, my friends, that’s going to do it for us this week.

👉 Want to take these concepts further and apply them to your life? Learn more about how we can work together with my small group coaching program, “We’re Busy Being Awesome,” and one-on-one coaching.

And, make sure to get access to the free training on focus and concentration below 👇

Links From The Podcast

• Learn more about private coaching here
• Learn more about We’re Busy Being Awesome here
• Get the top 10 tips to work with your ADHD brain (free ebook!)
• Discover my favorite ADHD resources
• Get the I’m Busy Being Awesome Planning System
• Get the I’m Busy Being Awesome Podcast Roadmap
• Take my free course, ADHD Routine Revamp

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