Cortex Interruptus

I've been reading some interesting articles on interruptions and productivity. In December, Reuters did an article on worker interruptions and productivity. The subhead was "The chances of you finishing this article without getting interrupted or distracted are slim."

I couldn't help but wonder if this is a generational thing — I never read an article online in one sitting. Typically, I read a few paragraphs, then go read something else, or research something the article makes me think of, or just mentally mark it for reading later and minimize it to my Dock. I have absolutely no expectation of doing anything in one sitting.

And yet, this past Friday I ended up staying at work until shortly before 10pm, finishing writing a proposal that I had been unable to make significant headway on all afternoon. Perhaps there is something to this interruption/productivity problem, after all.

Today, a friend sent me an email with a link to the wonderfully titled Cortex Interruptus.

"For more and more people, every day feels like this - one long string of interruptions with only the gaps in between to get anything done. However bad you think it is, it's probably worse. When researchers at the University of California at Irvine set out to quantify the problem, they thought people were probably overreacting, that we probably got in a good quarter of an hour or so between disruptions. But after shadowing a dozen information workers for three days, they found that on average they got just three sustained minutes of work in before being diverted. "I was shocked," says Gloria Mark, who ran the study."

The article continues to describe several technological solution attempts at managing interruptions. Interesting stuff, and I'd love to try them out, if they ever become products I can buy.

43folders has an entire Interruptions category. Some are excellent non-techology approaches, such as David Cheong's recent practical ideas for staying focussed at work, and a handy tips for dealing with interuption and overload.

Particularly good is Stever Robin's tips for managing email overload has some great tips on authoring email messages so they are effective for the recipients. (Our own Nick Grant is already a master of this.) At least this way, when you interrupt someone with email, it won't take as much time or attention.