Would you expect someone to get a good night’s sleep if they were interrupted all night? Then how can you expect someone to get a good day’s work if they are interrupted all day?
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Would you expect someone to get a good night’s sleep if they were interrupted all night? Then how can you expect someone to get a good day’s work if they are interrupted all day?
SH
on 26 Oct 10I used to be really, really annoyed by auto-responder emails that say “Due to high workload I’m only answering emails at such and such times…” Likewise, I used to think it was snotty that a person would set their IM status to “Work only” or something annoyingly less social.
But now I see it as a remarkably strong-willed thing people to do protect their time. It’s hard not to admire a person who puts up boundaries and sticks to them. So if you’re sick of interruptions, stop putting yourself at risk for them.
Turn off IM if people are bothering you. Tell people you won’t be replying to their email until later. Hell, why even keep email or IM open at all? If the world is exploding, you’ll find out while you’re busy getting work done. Otherwise, you’ll just be getting work done.
George
on 26 Oct 10Agreed. Do you guys have any tips for highschool kids trying to run their web design projects? Homework and studying equal enormous interruptions.
nathan
on 26 Oct 10I agree with this but I used to have a boss who always had/has his status as “busy” 24/7. I can’t recall a single time it was available. To me it says he wants everyone to know how busy he is and how annoying his interruptions are, but doesn’t have the gumption to just turn it off. Its like being “remarkably strong-willed” enough to post the status, but not disciplined enough to actually cut out distractions.
Joe
on 26 Oct 10Wow, that’s a great thought.
Unlike sleep however, you need to watch out for those internal distractions as well, like checking the internets.
Thanks for sharing!
Eric
on 26 Oct 10But I still don’t like auto-responder emails. I don’t care that you won’t get back to me until later, but that automatic email was an unnecessary distraction to my day…
Jimmy Chan
on 27 Oct 10JF,
Sleep is only involve one person. But sometimes work need another person to get the jobs done.
Chris (from L.C.)
on 27 Oct 10This and batching tasks together are the best ways for me to get things done. What takes a co-worker a couple of days to do, I can get hammered out in about 1/2 a day, provided that I’m not interrupted, and I’ve got everything I need to do the job.
Now, if I could only get other people to understand this…
Mat
on 27 Oct 10Alternatively…
Can you expect somebody who is interrupted all night to have a good day’s work?
Mostly applies to people with children :)
Brock
on 27 Oct 10I agree with the message, but what terrible logic… sounds cool, though.
Warren Henning
on 27 Oct 10Unfortunately, the people who most need to read this kind of thing are the least likely to read it.
Adrian Putley
on 27 Oct 10There’s a good description of this in the book ‘Peopleware’ by Tom Yourdan and Timothy Lister.
KevinT
on 27 Oct 10Would you expect someone to ride a bicycle well if lot of people tried to climb on it? Then how can you expect someone to drive a bus if people try to get on board all day?
Adi
on 27 Oct 10This is an analogy. It doesn’t prove anything.
Adam
on 27 Oct 10Reminds me of when I visited an office where anyone could interrupt at anytime. Even a conversation between two coworkers could be interrupted, and then that interruption was sometimes interrupted by another person for something else altogether. The initial conversation might resume when the other interruptions are finished but no guarantees. It’s a great system for the person with the loudest voice but not great for overall office productivity.
John Gallagher
on 27 Oct 10Brilliant. Gets to the heart of why interruptions should not be seen as “just part of the job” or “normal”.
Blain Smith
on 27 Oct 10Very thought provoking. I have always been more productive when not being distracted by non-team members.
I am a big fan of screening calls and closed doors.
JF
on 27 Oct 10I think work and sleep are closely related.
You do both for around 8 hours a day.
They are both phase based – you don’t just go to sleep, you go through phases to get real sleep. I believe the same is true for work.
They both required uninterrupted stretches of time to be effective.
I think looking at them together makes a lot of sense.
Tabita
on 27 Oct 10Couldn’t agree more. I encourage my team to turn off email, IM, anything that beeps, buzzes, or plings at you when working on requirements, design, etc. It is easy to work only 8 hours per day (even in technology) if the interruptions are managed.
David O.
on 27 Oct 10If two people were working together then we won’t say they are interrupting each other. However a third party could still interrupt them and interruptions can be very counterproductive.
Adi
on 28 Oct 10@JF You put “then” between 2 analogue statements. One doesn’t prove the other. It sounds good but it is flawed logic. There is no cause effect relations between them.
It’s one thing to REM sleep which requires uninterrupted periods of time. Working is not the same thing. Most people require time to get into “work mode” but this is because most people have a mess in their head. Most people never clean up their emotions, never upgrade their outdated modes of thinking and never optimize all of the work processes. This is why it takes a lot of time to boot the mind’s software.
GregT
on 28 Oct 10I think work and sleep are closely related. You do both for around 8 hours a day.
Eric J. Smith
on 30 Oct 10I’m a software engineer turned business owner. I have a small team of 5 including myself. My passion is software development and I actually despise a large portion of the business side of things that I have to deal with on a day to day basis. Ideally I would love to have some focus time to do the thing that I love to do, but it just doesn’t seem practical for me to not be available to my team. Anyone have any advice for me?
This discussion is closed.