37signals is spread out over four cities and eight time zones. From Provo, Utah to Copenhagen, Denmark, the five of us are eight hours apart. One positive side effect of this eight hour difference is alone time. People need uninterrupted time to get things done.
There are only about 4-5 hours during the day that we’re all up and working together. At other times, the US team is sleeping while David, who’s in Denmark, is working. The rest of the time, we’re working while David is sleeping. This gives us about half of the day together and the other half alone.
Guess which part of the day we get the most work done? The alone part. It’s not that surprising really. Many people prefer to work either early in the morning or late at night – times when they’re not being bothered.
When you have a long stretch where you aren’t bothered, you can get in the zone. The zone is when you are most productive. It’s when you don’t have to mindshift between various tasks. It’s when you aren’t interrupted to answer a question or look up something or send an email or answer an im. The alone zone is where real progress is made.
Getting in the zone takes time. And that’s why interruption is your enemy. It’s like rem sleep – you don’t just go to rem sleep, you go to sleep first and you make your way to rem. Any interruptions force you to start over. rem is where the real sleep magic happens. The alone time zone is where the real development magic happens.
One tip to help you create some alone time is… Set up a rule at work: Make half the day alone time. From 10am-2pm, no one can talk to one another (except during lunch). Or make the first or the last half of the day the alone time period. Just make sure this period is contiguous in order to avoid productivity-killing interruptions.
A successful alone time period means letting go of communication addiction. During alone time, give up instant messaging, phone calls, and meetings. Avoid any email thread that’s going to require an immediate response. Just shut up and get to work.
Get Into the Groove
We all know that knowledge workers work best by getting into “flow”, also known as being “in the zone”, where they are fully concentrated on their work and fully tuned out of their environment. They lose track of time and produce great stuff through absolute concentration…trouble is that it’s so easy to get knocked out of the zone. Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having to drive 5 minutes to Starbucks for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers – especially interruptions by coworkers – all knock you out of the zone. If you take a 1 minute interruption by a coworker asking you a question, and this knocks out your concentration enough that it takes you half an hour to get productive again, your overall productivity is in serious trouble.
- Joel Spolsky, software developer, Fog Creek Software from Where do These People Get Their (Unoriginal) Ideas?
The Book
This feature is an excerpt from a pdf book written by Jason Fried of 37signals. Order the complete book for only $19.
Great advice. I wish I could ignore inbound emails though — they really do distract me, often when I need to concentrate the most.
Yeah, all of this stuff makes sense. As a college student, flow (or the ‘zone’ as it’s called here) is something I have to fight to get into all the time. It’s like IM is the college student’s favorite app and sometimes those little windows flash like miniature alarms or something. When iChat is closed and I’m hiding in a library somewhere, I get tons more done than ever before…
Folks should read “Flow” by Mihalyi Csikzentmihalyi for more on getting in the zone. There’s a way!
And this is why I work at home for one day a week (most weeks, not all). Face to face communication is vital at times but if I’m needing some quiet time to “zone out” then I head home.
I just stopped what I was doing to open the email that took me to this article.
Does that make me ironic? (rhetorical ;)
I could not agree more! Sometimes when I’m ‘in the zone’ and the day is over, I don’t want to leave while I’m in the middle of coding something. My solution has been to switch to a totally-laptop experience (which sits on a stand in the office, with separate keyboard and mouse). I jump on to the train going home and get another 1/2 hour continued ‘zone’ time!
One thing that has improved my workflow is to set my ’send and receive’ to grab mails only every 15 mins.
If it’s set to every 5 mins I can’t stop myself clicking on the tiny envelope that appears when I get new mail.
And if I really have stuff to do I just quit Entourage. Harsh but necessary.
A technique that I think everyone on my team uses is to separate email and IM across computers. I have my work computer and my communication computer. This of course requires two computers.
I definitely can testify to splitting up your day and shutting off the email. I try to do all my phone calls and client communication in basecamp, support emails, etc in the morning. While I’m in between some of those things, I might be sketching out some design decisions. I have my email set to every hour, but I refresh alot more in the morning. Come the afternoon, it’s shut off IM, Cellphone to silent, and close RSS reader. Go time.
IM and email are really my achilles heel. I just can’t stop myself from being distracted by them. The time I get most work done is late at night when there’s no one to IM or send/receive email. Even if both clients are on.
The irony of the fact I am busy but reading this instead is not lost on me.. ;-)
Good call. I’m told that if you don’t have 3 hours of uninterrupted time, you won’t get anything serious done. I’ve seen the results in my own biz, and can’t recommend “tuning out” highly enough. Close IM, email, and feedreaders…they’ll be there when you take a break.
I think this is great advice. I know that IM has got to be one of my biggest obsticles to getting things done. I hardly ever use it any more for just that reason.
The problem with this idea is that in a small team, for example, you’ve got to communicate. If you don’t have that trust built up, you need to communicate quite a bit. It makes it hard to have the alone time you need.
Of course, you didn’t say it was easy…
David moved from Denmark to the US a few months ago, so several of the statements in this article are wildly out of date. This is just a rehash of an old article (or blog post) that was already published ;-)
Whenever I want to get into the zone I try the tips given by Jakob Nielsen in his Ten Steps for Cleaning Up Information Pollution.
They’re good ideas to live by.
Peter,
The article is an excerpt from the Getting Real book, as it states in the article.
I have an aternate of Byron’s method — I keep the IM and email on my small monitor, and don’t look at it until I need a break. I leave the feedreader closed most of the time, and catch up on it at lunch.
Unfortunately, I can’t get away from the noise of my co-workers talking at full volume, and usually the managers are the worst culprits. I sat through a baseball discussion that lasted over 90 minutes one day.
[…] “How to Shut up and Get to Work!” By Jason Fried http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/webapps/how-to-shut-up-and-get-to-work […]
Concentration is needed for many tasks but my best ideas often come when I’m being bombarded with information. Just a thought.
So this is an awesome article…and possibly the 10th time I’ve read it online. How many sites does this appear on already?
For me, the easiest thing for me to do is simply unplug my ethernet cable. Disconnecting me from ‘the Web’ allows me to focus on the important things I need to get done and when I’m online and that browser is just a click away, its just too tempting.
This is a great article. Being a student, I can relate to needing a lot of alone time to get my work done. I’ve been socialising all week and now I only have ten days to get three assignments done. All my work is done when I’ve forced myself into my room, pulled out the aerial on the tv, turned off all the phones,removed my Internet connection and stopped anyone from being able to contact me.
Nice article. Oh and love this site, too, just found it. Sometimes I get so irritated at work. I develop in a close-knit group at my day job and I’m often asked questions and so forth while I’m in the zone. I can really get cruising when nothing comes up - but something always does. The only time I get as ‘alone time’ is when my boss makes an unreasonable request from me and he knows it:
“I need this in two hours”
“Umm… you want this to work, right?”
“Yep.”
“I’m not so…”
“We’ll leave you alone - go, you can do it. Mach 5!”
And then I put on a pissy face for a couple of hours. But, when left alone, I can usually blast through things.
This doesn’t work, however, when I’m doing freelance stuff at home. I seek out distractions - and that’s why I work for someone else. I’d love an article on getting to work when you’re not there!
“rem is where the real sleep magic happens theory” is “rock”
Great idea, but hardly executable (read: beyond impossible) in an I/T job with scores of customers and co-workers. I know that mine is not the only company whose employees expect immediate responses all the time, or they go whining to the “unresponsive” person’s manager.
Jason, these are great principles. I echo Tiffani Bell’s comment - as a college kid, I’m often faced with the pressure for instant communication, which so often interrupts my work process and derails my train of thought before it has a chance to leave the station.
I especially empathize with others who have this struggle to just shut up and get to work, because I’m an editor for the Know More Media blog network and have what seems like a thousand scattered items to attend to each day. Reading this post made me think of some ways to simplify my time at work and focus better - even if that means placing activities in rigid “boxes” some of the time.
37signals has folks in Provo!? Cool beans, I’m in Salt Lake! Know More Media has an office in Provo - maybe yours and ours can meet up there sometime.
Totally agree with the sentiments in this article. We had a Public Holiday recently and rather than take it off as most folk do, I went into the office. No one was on IM, no phone calls :-)
I also used to work in a place where the boss worked from home. He informed everyone that he would check his email at 9am and 5pm every day. He stuck to it, it was annoying, but it worked for him and he was able to be very productive. This was before the days of IM ;-)
I love this article, very motivating!
One thing I always have to have to help get in the zone is music. With other people around me there is constant noise. People are always shifting around, talking to them self, talking to others, or even there typing can be distracting.
Music in it self can be detracting too, but at least I can control it and plan it out.
Like Byron, I use one computer purely for site/publication development and another (relatively “bargain basement”) computer for email. The second computer, with smaller monitor, serves double duty as a “test” machine to check various layouts, resolution problems, load speed of pages, etc, as well as a “word processor” for basic text creation, format conversion work, and other routine tasks that don’t require the nice development environment.
NEVER use IM: there is very little on earth that cannot wait; if it truly can’t, they will find a way to get a hold of you.
Another helpful strategy I find, when possible, is to work on the day after Thanksgiving, around the July 4th holiday, between Christmas and New Year’s holidays, and other “down” times when most colleagues and customers are off relaxing. Of course, this assumes family obligations do not suffer, but often these times can offer some of the best work hours of the work year.
If your employer offers it, a work schedule that begins or ends an hour or two earlier or later than most of the other staff’s schedules can offer some daily quiet time as well.
Nice article, and I hate to nitpick, but “contiguous” means “adjacent in time; immediately preceding or following”–seems to me you’d want colleagues’ schedules to include simultaneous alone time (that is, everyone having quiet, productive time at “the same time”)–contiguous alone time would result in constant interruption (one person’s alone time would end the moment the next person’s alone time begins).
Sometimes I forget to open my email client in the morning, and end up getting loads done! When I really have to be productive now I close down my email. People can survive an hour or two without getting a reply (if it’s urgent they’ll probably call anyway, but luckily that doesn’t happen much, allowing me to have some quiet time when I need it to get stuff done).
I’ve found that using virtual desktops (e.g. Desktop Manager on Mac) is a great help. I have one desktop for personal stuff, one desktop for work stuff I need to focus on. This cuts out visual distractions without the hassle of hiding/unhiding groups of windows when I want to switch modes. Also hide the Mac’s dock so you won’t have the “unread mail” counter nagging at you.
[…] There’s a great new site for developers, micro-ISVs and web designers now live: http://www.thinkvitamin.com. I fully intended to work on something else early this morning, but the great articles by Ryan Carson on Will your Web App Make Money and Jason Fried’s How to Shut Up and Get to Work! happily distracted me. […]
To me this “feature article” (altho with it’s length I’d hardly call it an article) seems more like a commercial for 37 signals book then anything really useful.
Yeah here’s a couple paragraphs.. if you want more shell out the bucks for the book! I get more from sample chapters on Amazon then I did from this.
I’ve had this same problem, being constantly bothered while working - or distracting myself online. It only stops when you quit your IM, mail software and turn the modem off. That’s when I get to work again. But, unfortunately, this does seems like a quick porpaganda of the book. A good advice nonetheless.
[…] Funny, I’ve never come across any specific posts or articles on this before - until now. I’ve long been one to preach this “zone” that we get into. Especially while at my last job, I found I rarely got into my “zone” unless I either came in a couple hours before anyone else (that rarely happened, I’m not a morning person) or either stayed late. […]
I agree with the comments to ignore or simply turn off email and IM. IM is plain and simple intended to interrupt. Email wouldn’t be so bad if we got out of the habit of leaving it open. Sure it’s often the communication medium, but it’s not expected to replace the phone or meetings.
I see it as being a matter of etiquette and/or expectations. If it’s truly urgent then pick up the phone or drop by my desk. Otherwise, assume that a response to your email may not come for up to an hour or two, maybe more.
A workplace without IM; and better etiquette and expectations would be a wonderful start to improving productivity.
This was a great little article, really one of the best ways that you can make sure to spend time in the zone is being aware of everything that we are talking about here.
To many developers think that they can e-mail, im, read rss, blog, and develop all at once. The biggest step is admiting you have a problem. It’s always great to read an article that really makes you examine how your work flow for the day goes, and how you can improve it.
On that note, I’m going to get back to work. (is it such a good idea to post an article that’s going to convict people not to come read your site as much though!) I kidd.
.type.
[…] Vitamin Features » How to Shut up and Get to Work! (tags: efficiency work) Filed under: del.icio.us — del.icio.us @ 4:22 am No Comments » […]
Jason - So true….the biggest killer to progress is getting pulled out of your element. Keep the email, feed reader and im closed because they will just suck you in. Also, for me music and a set of head phones pulls me in and I am able to get things done.
BTW….I like the call out for the “Zone Time” that is advertised to others as your time to bust out some work.
We have all the typical distractions, designers in Canada, Upstate NY, NJ, Chicago, programmers the same…the distraction being Email, IM, BCamp, Phones, Cell Phones, It’s nuts…
My Solutions, I just got a second imac G5 for upstairs in the home office, it will not be next to a phone, I will not have email open, it will be for me in the am and pm, during the day I will have all my gadgets around in the basement office for the clients sake, but am and pm are all mine…and my new shiny imac…it will be nice to watch a few flicks on the 20″ while up in the bedroom office…and no paperwork up there either…none.
These are some great suggestions to add to my continuous discovery of how to truly be productive in any type of work. One tip I have that may add to staying in the “zone” would be to plan out your tasks. Each day I come in and create a “to-do” list. This helps me stay focused on the tasks that I need to complete. At times when that list gets large, I know it’s time to buckle down and get somethings done. It also helps me identify which tasks are of a higher priority than others. So now I just need to cut out the IM’s and the e-mail and I’ll be set.
Thanks for the article, great read.
I disconnect de network cable :oD
It’s great to hear everyone’s take on Alone Time. I really believe its one of the reasons we’ve been able to deliver 5 products, 1 book, and Ruby on Rails in a little over 2 years with a small team. We all stay out of each other’s way.
For those commenting on how this is just an excerpt from our book, you’re right, it is. It’s common practice for magazines and publications to publish exclusive excerpts from a book in their pages. It benefits the readers by giving them content they’d only be able to get if they purchased the book, and it benefits the author by promoting the book. Everyone benefits.
Hi -
This seems to go against the idea of software development philosophies such as Extreme Programming, where you design a workspace where there is maximum interaction in order to increase feedback, communcation and teamwork. I’m wondering how a half day of no contact fits in with the development practices that are already out there.
Thanks.
We think there’s there’s such a thing as too much collaboration. That’s what we’re suggesting. It’s ok to get together, we’re just saying it’s great to carve out a big chunk of Alone Time every day so you can actually get things done.
Want your knowledge workers to be able to get in the zone? Get rid of cubicles! Give valuable workers a real office, or let them work from home most of the time. Cubicles are the antithesis of zone work.
personally i like to create an environment that introduces minimal distractions. i don’t have any friends so i am not worried about personal calls (i do not own a cellphone) or email. i prefer to create an environment that most closely matches the unix console mode, but with mouse enabled cut/paste and smooth fonts. for this i use fluxbox. i customize it so terminals take up the entire screen, and the window borders are invisible. if you walked by and looked, you would swear i was in console mode. second - use elinks to do web browsing if you can. this will wean you off the distractions of the visual web.
You could have just said:
Problem: Distractions make people less productive.
Solution: Eliminate distractions.
After all, isn’t less more (more or less)? I suppose it’s a little harder to convince people to pay $19 for a seven-and-a-half page PDF file of “keep-it-simple insights,” though.
I couldn’t agree more with the principles of this excerpt. I work on a University campus and find that I am most productive when I get away from the shackles of my desk and sit outside with my laptop and a pair of headphones.
Leaving Mail, Adium, NetNewsWire, and a host of other programs open all day is the worst possible thing you can do your productivity and your creativity. Shutting it all down for most of the day and then taking a few minutes to catch up on what’s been posted in the mean time is the only way to roll. The only distraction I allow myself is iTunes and even then I try to limit it to music that isolates me from distraction and helps me “get in the zone.”
So what if you aren’t the first to comment on a blog post or to respond to an e-mail, at least you know that you got something done!
Awesome, i’ll try to follow that advice… this is my first time in this site and i already like it a lot. Great job.
This is definitely some strong advice. It take a good amount of discipline to shut that email, turn off that cell phone and close that IM service. It definitely makes a difference though. As a part time home based designer, it’s even harder to make that happen when I get home after my full time job. It has to though because my alone time is even more important because it is such a short amount of time. I agree that is when the most work gets done. Another good tip that I have learned is to reward yourself for a job well done. If you put in a hard week of alone times then go our for a drink with friends, watch a movie, etc. The goal will help and it will keep you from having too much alone time. You will need the interaction with other people and you will need the breaks. It’s just important to make sure the alone time is the bulk of your time. If it starts to slide to the other way then it’s time to re-evaluate your situation.
Great post! Great advice!!
The zone is sometimes hard to find, a year ago i decided to turn of all my IM, almost forever, i prefer email o gmail, i prefer skype o ichat video. Those are direct and fast ways to get the point across.
[…] 37signals‘ Jason Fried writes an article about being in the zone. “Just shut up and get to work.” (via vitamin) […]
So, basically what you’re saying is that we should move to the Moon. With only one hour of radio time every 48 hours, we’re sure to become productivity gods!
I agree with Charles. I thrive on having a lot to do. If I am focusing on one task or project for several hours each day, I simply get bored.
As a designer getting in the flow means sometimes alot of trial and error…Put something down and then stare at it and make some adjustments and repeat the process. This is often interrupted for me when someone stands behind you and says “you should put that over there…” or “your not going to use that color are you”..This is in mid development when you trying different things. I found in previous jobs that when I don’t get (or feel like i may get) interrupted by anyone during my trial and error period i can go faster and get more done quicker.
[…] How to Shut up and Get to Work! Getting into “the zone.” (tags: gtd lifehacks) […]
I totally agree. When I get in “the zone” I can get so much done. However, I always end up getting IM’d and called when I am trying to work. For me, I have to start extra early to get anything done.
Very good article. I have a problem with browsing forums when i am stuck with something. I also get lots of im’s from various people, and I also work almost exclusivly late at night because thats when eveything is asleep, and im wide awake! Great site, and great article.
Wait…. i’m not the only one that gets his best work done at 11pm to 2am consistently?!!
There didn’t seem to be any real advice in this post at all; it serves as nothing more than an advertisement.
It might as well just be its title. Or, if you wanted to expand on it, it could very well be:
Designate some alone time, and get to work.
You haven’t told us how to do anything. Nice effort though?
I’ve found that when I’m stuck “out of the zone”, circling ’round trying to get down to work, that I have to focus on just one single task or aspect of the job at hand — and then set my sights on simply finishing that one thing.
It’s been a help so far, and of course, on to the next thing when that bit’s done.
Earplugs, good ones. I often find myself reaching “the zone” faster and staying longer using them.
Almost Done……
<p>Today was the first day of exams. I’ve just finished one and I have four more coming.</p><p>I’ve had a lot more time recently to work on the graphs project, but no huge developments in it. I’ve started on the JavaScript ……
Like many here IM, Email and mobile phone messages slow down my production. For me to stay in the zone and get the most amount of work done, I try to simply remove myself from the world.
I’ve recently been able to do this by turning off everything, email, im and mobile phone from 9am till 2pm. To start with it was hard being self-disiplined, however after a few months of working like this everyone knew I was inaccessible during my “productive” times.
Modern technology has turned a 3 minute phone call into a 45 minute IM chat session.
[…] From Vitamin. Email This Post to A Friend […]
I’m so pathetic that I have to have a sign in my office in bold letters that says, “Software does not write itself!” and I make a no distraction rule for a given day, such as no email, no IM, no forums, etc. I even sometimes do nothing all day (until dinner) but eat crackers and drink tea just so I won’t get too sleepy from heavy food and yet curb the cravings.
I also found that sometimes when I’m slowing down on app, it’s because I am afraid to touch it for fear of breaking something, like it’s a Shangri-La, and that’s a sign I need to rewrite it because I haven’t used enough OOP. I’m not a fan of too much OOP, but too little OOP can cause you to only go so far before you start to have an app that looks hotwired. By getting a fresh start on a rewrite, I am re-invigorated and motivated by doing things the right way, not the way to get it done fast. Since the apps I write are meant to be opened up and reused by other programmers, I want them to look good and therefore put a lot of attention on the under-the-hood stuff.
Someone also said here that one should get rid of cubicles. I completely disagree. That’s one way to invite distraction. Sure, it’s a way for managers to see what you’re producing or not, but it’s also a way to get distracted. I prefer the approach of giving web devs their own private offices, no matter how tiny. It just requires a weekly “results” meeting, however, to get things done. Sometimes it requires a mid-week meeting or a daily meeting, unfortunately, as we approach a timecrunch and when it is discovered that not enough work is being done.
Notions on Working At Home: What I Did Wrong and How You Can Learn From My Mistakes…
I’ve just completed a week of really intense project hopping and so it was extremely timely that I happened upon 2 great posts last night which helped me so that I can avoid this in the future. The first post…
The easiest way for me to get into Flow is to listen to trance music. I just let the beat take me away. The iTunes Electronica radio stations are a good place to start, and djdoboy.com offers free downloads of full-length trance mixes. With the headphones on, I have a good excuse not to hear the occasional unimportant comment, which could throw me out of Flow. I hide the taskbar, keep my browser and text editor full screen, and turn off notifications for email, IM, Skype, RSS, etc.
One of the biggest boosts for my productivity was the purchase of a second monitor. Most of you will agree that being able to see the code and the product simultaneously is invaluable in development.
Dan Kennedy (No B.S. Time Management — and I have no ties with him whatsoever) writes, “If you take inbound calls as they come, you are constantly stopping work on a task of known priority in favor of something or someone of unknown priority. You are turning control of your day over to the unknown.”
The same goes for indiscriminately checking/opening/answering e-mails immediately, IM’s every time they pop up, and the cell phone every time it vibrates.
Kennedy suggests reviewing the morning’s e-mails, VM’s, etc. for an hour after lunch and dealing with only those that are truly urgent, then taking another hour at day’s end to check for new messages and deal again only with the most urgent. Work the rest into your plan for the following day.
And I couldn’t agree more with Ratbert42 on IM’s.
If you can break the robotic habit of checking, opening and/or answering everything immediately, you will begin to see how very much time can be lost in failing to deal with these communications more systematically.
It isn’t a question of working on various things throughout a given day vs. one project or task for hours; it is about putting a value on your time then using it efficiently so that the return on your investment is maximized.
[…] From vitamin […]
[…] Shut up and go to work von Jason Fried […]
[…] A look at Art and Design The Art and Design is written in a easy manner, centred on the design community, and points to discussions I can use. For instance, I work at home and her article Notions on Working At Home: What I Did Wrong and How You Can Learn From My Mistakes took me to Jason Fried’s How to shut up and get to work, then over to Darren Rowse’s The Work at Home Entrepreneur which sent me to Dominic Foster’s Benefits of Working From Home. […]
I can’t agree more. I am sitting here now, just after midnight. No one around to bother me or call me. Perhaps I have accomplished more in the past 4 hours than I did all day.Perhaps we should all get one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_silence
[…] I won’t bore you with any more of my version of the alone zone, head on over to this article to read the rest of the apparent growing problem. […]
[…] http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/webapps/how-to-shut-up-and-get-to-work […]
This is oh so very true. I do freelance work and choose to do most of my work by burning the midnight oil. I find that late at night I’m far more productive. I’m massively addicted to messengers and when nobody is on to chat with I find I get far more done.
I recently had to resort to having a “work name” that I use only to communicate with clients and fellow designers/programmers.
Great “zone” speak.
Great discussion and article (I’m glad its been reprinted…). While the focus of this discussion has centered on controlling sensory input, there is another side to this equation that I did see brought out. - We can increase our capacity to 1)get into the flow on (relative) demand 2) maintain focus and flow despite whatever is going on around us. It takes PRACTICE, but it can be done. This is part of my professional expertise - teching knowledge workers and creative professionals how to use their body (body/mind) to increase their performance capacity. A good yoga or meditation class is great place to start…just be sure the class is not overly focused on the postures (Bull). Good luck one and all!
Thats interessting. Tom De Marco wrote already the same in his book “Peopleware : Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd Ed.” in 1999. I think today this gets more and more import because of all the communication channels like im, sms that attract our attention.
Arbeitsmanagement & Jahrgangsseite…
Gerade die neue Jahrgangsseite fertiggestellt - mitten in der Nacht, bzw. am frühesten Morgen.
Da hat doch Gerrit mit seiner ICE-Arbeit eine bessere Zeit getroffen.
Recht haben sie allerdings alle, mich hat in der Zeit niemand angeschrieben, ange…
Late nights, weekends and holidays are all incredibly productive times (when family commitments permit) due to the relative silence, and the bonus of KNOWING that the phone won’t ring…that’s even better. Sometimes the anticipation of interruptions blocks the flow.
Getting knocked out of the zone makes me angry. Especially for petty stuff at work like “How’s your day?”.
“Good until you interuptted me.”
I find environments where each team member can request help from other team members the best productivity aid.
All too often in big companies people are too worried about keeping their jobs to actually ask for help, and sit their starring at the screen, when actually walking a colleague through the problem can solve it in minutes, or get another perspective in minutes.
Fix this first.
Then fix the number of distractions.
But yeah there should also be ‘alone time’ during the day definately. In a ‘typical*’ day maybe 9-10 should be a interact time, 10-12 should be alone time, 12-1 lunch away from the computer, 1-2 interact time, 2-4 alone time, 4-5 summerise, tidy, write tomorrow’s todo list and go home.
Also whilst cubicles are Stupid at the other end of the scale a 200 seater open plan office is nothing less than sitting out on the street. What’s the optimum ? I don’t really know, but a room with a door and at most most 20 people in clusters of 4 is probably near it ?
*I’m not suggesting everyone works 9-5. But some sort of general guidline that if you publish a daily routine and stick to it, people will know when everyones prefferred alone times are.
[…] Additional reading: Jason Fried of 37signals has some words of wisdom to help you learn How To Shut Up and Get To Work. Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
[…] Jason recently wrote a great article about the importance of alone time on Vitamin. He talked about how the 37signals team is spread out across the country and how that helps them avoid unnecessary interruptions. This obviously means they get things done quicker. […]
[…] Or ,on besoin de Temps Seul “Alone Time” pour travailler efficacement, sans être distrait. Un autre post à lire de Kathy Sierra “Est ce que faire plusieurs choses en même ne nous rend pas stupide ? (Multitasking makes us stupid?) […]
[…] Jason Fried on actually getting to work while at work. Search […]
[…] Vitamin Features » How to Shut up and Get to Work! (tags: work psychology business) […]
A common theme: disengage…but what if your work culture is entirely based on distractions? For instance, 8 hours of my day is spent in meetings or doing email. (I had to shut off the alerts I get from email because it was stressing me out so much)
I too, work late and long hours because production time (real work time) gets moved into the evening. The weirdest thing is: most people are there working too - we all just move into work mode. This gives me hope because at least it’s possible for my coworkers to respect production time at the SAME time, if only it were earlier in the day. :(
I guess my question is: how do we change our culture of communications across the board in a large company? Is it even possible?
Hmmm… I’ve found that whenever I need to get things done really bad, I don’t give many hoots to the pings of IM or e-mail. I guess focus is about a little more than just external distractions. If you want to REALLY sit and finish something, you will, no matter what interrupts you.
Just my take…
Cómo callarse y empezar a trabajar!?…
Cuando estás en "la zona" puede lograr lo mejor de tu trabajo. Pero cómo llegas a esa "zona" cuando colegas, e-mail y mensajería instantánea están pudiendo tu atención?. [En inglés]…
Great Idea but I doubt it can be achieved. Could be done if you’r the boss or you have a small team but you cant do it when you are part of a big setup or if you are working realtime. Or even if you’r the team lead and other people depend on your advice. Good reading though.
Ok sir.
[…] Recht haben sie allerdings alle, mich hat in der Zeit niemand angeschrieben, angerufen oder sonstwie gestört. Und dieser Zeitraum der Übermüdung erhöht das auf-eine-Sache-beschränken noch einmal. Was einem auch auffällt ist, dass die eigene Informationssucht doch recht groß ist. Tagsüber ist der Feedreader recht stark frequentiert und hält einen durchaus erfolgreich vom Arbeiten ab. […]
[…] Jason Fried comments: One tip to help you create some alone time is… Set up a rule at work: Make half the day alone time. From 10am-2pm, no one can talk to one another (except during lunch). Or make the first or the last half of the day the alone time period. Just make sure this period is contiguous in order to avoid productivity-killing interruptions. […]
[…] Nice readings are: The Asymptotic Twitter Curve, How to shut up and get to work, Clicker trained by our email. […]
The only problem I have is I always start thinking {more like day dreaming} about the Future Planning.
The best way is to play a game before working, then start work on a rule.
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[…] Im Artikel wurde auch auf einen weiteren Beitrag von einem Entwickler von 37signals mit dem Titel “How to shut up and get to work!” verlinkt, der die Problematik auch erkannt hat. Er schreibt, das die eigentliche Arbeit in der Zeit erledigt wird, in der man seine Ruhe hat und nicht gestört wird. (Er nennt es “the zone”, da die 37signals-Mitarbeiter in verschiedenen Zeitzonen leben und sich am Tag nur 4 Stunden gemeinnsam unterhalten können). […]
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Everyone that read this thread needs to just shut up and get to work, including myself.
Thread Closed.
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[…] How To Shut Up And Get To Work “When you’re in ‘the zone’ you get your best work done. But how do you get in that ‘zone’ when colleagues, e-mails and IM are vying for your attention?” (Beats the hell outta me!) (tags: work business tips productivity) […]
Your reference to “flow” comes from Mihaly Cziksentmihlyi, and is also mentioned by Dan Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) and David Allen (Getting Things Done). You’re right: productive work comes when one is not distracted, properly challenged, and has a clear mind (all the other junk I have to do is filed away in my tasks list so I don’t have to have it in the back of my mind).
So, an extreme case of what you mention here is Timothy Ferris, in the “Four Hour Work Week.” A fun read from a really offbeat guy (he tries just about everything from Tango competitions to selling a nutritional supplement called “Brain Quicken”). Mr Ferrris says he checks his e-mail once a week for one hour. That’s it. Now, that’s extreme.
I’m a product manager for collaborative products from Novell.
[…] How to Shut Up and Get to Work! by Jason Fried […]
i need amoney to complete my study in university
thanks for all Jason..
Good works..
Nice Site, Great Article!
Gruß from Germany
Michael
thanks for all Jason..
Good works..
Thank You !
[…] Since we also targeted USA students, we prefer to promote our site at facebook than other social network or advertising platform. Result? Not bad, we got 8 visits (and 2 users registered) from facebook and most of them seems to be domicile in US. Just that. Yeah, i know it is a little bit sloppy, but never mind, the startup must continue; to work, to keep dreaming, brainstorming, shut up, and get to work again. And again! […]
[…] I’ve come to realize at this moment, though, that I don’t like twitter because it’s exactly too technically interruptive in my life. I have big issues with focus, flow, and being ‘in the zone’ in terms of work. I long for a job where I’ll get my own office, where I can focus and concentrate and not be distracted by people walking around or music playing or having to prevent myself from eavesdropping. Basically I have trouble getting in the zone: Getting in the zone takes time. And that’s why interruption is your enemy. It’s like rem sleep – you don’t just go to rem sleep, you go to sleep first and you make your way to rem. Any interruptions force you to start over. rem is where the real sleep magic happens. The alone time zone is where the real development magic happens. […]