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Reducing interruptions to boost productivity
Posted February 18, 2008I’ve allowed myself to get distracted lately by too much interruptive information. When you’re coding it can take a while to load the code into your brain and get into the zone where you’re making real progress with it (Paul Graham describes it here). Every time you get interrupted it can be like starting over. It’s easy to get distracted by various communication mediums popping up on your desktop. And a day with with regular interruptions is a day where not a lot of work gets done.
So lately I’ve taken some steps to get control of my work time again.
- No twitterific. I check twitter a couple of times a day from the web interface. I also installed a firefox plugin to monitor how long I spend each day on various web sites.
- No Adium. IM messages are generally not important. If it’s not important enough to warrant an email then it’s not important enough to warrant disturbing me.
- No Skype. If I need make or receive a call I’ll switch it on. Otherwise, the same goes as for Adium.
- Feedreader set to update twice a day. I’ll only check feeds at the beginning and the end of the day.
- Email client set to check for new mail every 2 hours. Some emails are important. I may increase this to twice a day depending on how it goes.
- IRC: This is a tricky one as IRC is a great place to get answers quickly. So I’ll still be on IRC a bit but it will depend on what I’m working on.
- Anybody who really needs to reach me has my mobile number. So if it’s important enough to interrupt me then they can text me.
The above applies when I’m doing work that requires concentration. On other days when I’m doing stuff that doesn’t require much focus then the above can be ignored.
It’s easy to get addicted to your info feed and want continuous access to it asap. But the truth is most of it in not urgent and it doesn’t lose value if you batch-process it rather than deal with it in real-time.
In fact batch processing is much more efficient for this information as you are more likely to skim or skip the unimportant stuff.
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Like yourself Aidan I've often found myself getting way too distracted with news feeds, emails, etc. So much so that for the month of December I went cold turkey. I didn't visit a single website that I normally visit on a daily basis (google reader, slashdot, reddit, digg, irish independant). The most difficult part was just getting out off the habit. I found myself automatically clicking on the quick links I had in my browser - had to remove the links completely to avoid temptation.
With all the time I saved I ended up developing a little application that had been my mind over the past few months.
I find I rarely read slashdot, digg, reddit etc anymore, whereas I used to read them daily. They're too noisy for the amount of time I have to read them. These days I limit myself to programming reddit and hacker news for general tech news. Most of the stuff in my feed reader more specialist/focused.
You could easily spend half of every day on reddit/digg/slashdot/metafilter/fark/... etc if you're not careful.
Good post... i have the same trouble! ;-)
What Firefox extension are you using to monitor your time?
The firefox extension I’m using at the moment is 8aweek.
I also use Active Timer which is a mac utility to track how much time you spend in individual programs.
Previously I was using Rescue Time which is an application (Win & Mac) that does both these tasks.
How does giving up everything increase your productivity?
I have many friends on the twitter, and I use twitterific as well. To lessen the disruption, I just hide twitter and use the growl messages.
As for websites, I use RSS feeds to their fullest. When I have some sort of downtime... lunch, quick breaks... I just peruse google reader for headlines that might catch my eye. I have them organized into groups that allows me to go right for what I am in the mood for.
Email is growl enabled as well, so I get a quick glimpse of the important stuff which comes into my mailbox. All mailing list and other chatter is automatically filtered out.
I use Omnifocus to organize my time. I actually have less distractions, because I don't have to remember what I need to get done. I trust my tools to tell me what to do next.
I'm not giving everything up - just batch processing it.
I don't see how using growl is less interruptive, since it pops up a message on your desktop everytime a new event happens.
The reason I think growl help is because it allows me to subconsciously decide if I want to handle the email or whatever, or keep up with i'm currently doing.
But, I will acknowledge that everything doesn't work for everyone, and actually finding out what works for you is what is actually important.
Its really a difficult task to block everything out. I just keep my desktop as bare as possible and try to stay away from any type of distraction.
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