One of my coworkers told me he used to have an automatic response to all his emails which said, "I only read emails from 8-8:30am. If this is something important, please call me."
I recently read an article in the NY Times which made me think a bit more about how different people handle the new systems which we use to communicate.
In the article, "I Took a Web Detour, and Now I Feel Better" the writer talks about the benifts of taking a web detour on facebook, twitter, etc when she felt stressed out, frustrated, or just needed a break. She claims it actually makes her more productive and can free her mind. This is interesting to me because I believe that our interactions with the world shape who we are. This may sound simple and obvious but it also may change the way you look at a job search. That is a different topic though. Now, for the professional opinion on this subject:
"Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at... says it’s possible that our brains are adapting to handle the many inputs of digital stimulation."
Although it is surprising he needs an advanced degree to make this claim, it is interesting to think about how the internet changes how we behave, manage our time, and deal with our work. Do you take 'internet breaks'? Does this make you more productive?
3 comments:
Interesting article- technology has pushed us into the age of "always on- always connected". Personally, I take "internet breaks" - I find it helps to refocus/ read something I normally wouldn't have and even trigger new thoughts. One can lose track of time so discipline is key. As for checking emails, it can be very distracting to constantly see emails pop up in your Inbox. When working on something that requires full attention, I don't look at emails. How do you manage email volume?
My firm actually tried department-wide "email blackouts." The idea was that staff might not feel comfortable 'turning off' email unless their managers did as well - meaning that staff wouldn't get yelled at for not responding immediately to an urgent email because managers wouldn't be emailing! We tried it for 1.5 hours in the late morning and in the mid-afternoon.
For a couple of weeks it worked well, and was generally liked, but then a few people started "cheating" and going back to email, which meant it was hard to everyone not to give in.
I'll still take the email blackouts during days where I'm particularly busy, but I actually find the distraction mentally helpful if I'm working on a particularly mundane project... somehow seeing the Outlook email preview pop up gives me something to take a break from the mental monotony.
My current role is the first where I haven't had a blackberry, and I LOVE it. Largely because no one at my level has a blackberry, so the higher-level supervisors know that once we are out of the office, we are out of the office. They do have our cell numbers (scary thought) but literally the only time it was used was for building emergencies (bomb threats, blizzard closures, and other 'exciting' working-in-midtown events).
If this topic interests you, I beg you to watch Sherry Turkle's Ted Talk: Connected but Alone.
She says: "We're getting used to a new way of being alone together. People want to be with each other, but also elsewhere -- connected to all the different places they want to be. People want to customize their lives. They want to go in and out of all the places they are because the thing that matters most to them is control over where they put their attention. So you want to go to that board meeting, but you only want to pay attention to the bits that interest you. And some people think that's a good thing. But you can end up hiding from each other, even as we're all constantly connected to each other."
http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html?quote=1460
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