Going Dark. Again
May 6th, 2008
UPDATE: I reckon this article has nailed it
This weekend was the Anzac weekend, a time for reflection and remembering the things our Grand Fathers and Great Grand Fathers (and possibly Mothers) did for us and our way of life. I miss you Pa.
I had the opportunity on Friday night to sit down with some code, uninterrupted. No internet, therefore no Email, IM, IRC, Twitter, RSS. It was grand.
It started me thinking, how the hell can us “knowledge” (I hate that term) workers balance being as productive as you know you can with keeping in touch? The vast majority of my friends are online most of the time, at work, at home and even in between sometimes (Hi Lachlan!). I like being in the loop, I like knowing what’s going on. Twitter has made that a process alot easier than it was 12 months ago.
So I have decided that my work day is now going to consist mostly of “off-line” time. 9 – Lunch will be offline, that is, working without distractions. No Email, IRC, IM, Twitter. At Lunch time i’ll surface again for a little while, probably an hour tops. After lunch i’ll hook back in. After the kids are in bed I may come back on, maybe not. Dunno yet.
I tend to embrace things half-heartedly, this is one thing i’m going to try and stick to. If you need me urgently, SMS or Phone is where it’s at.
The other side effect I hope this will address is my new level of bored-ness with the interwebs, seriously, I can’t find anything interesting out there atm.
Apologies for the above brain dump, upon re-reading it wasn’t very well thought out. Oh Well.
Matta
4 Responses to “Going Dark. Again”
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April 27th, 2008 at 10:23 PM Hi, Matt! If you ever need to get hardcore about the offline thing (as in do it for real rather than shut down the lines of communication), you might like to try Freedom. Works a treat ;)
April 28th, 2008 at 03:57 PM Hey Lachlan! I still need the interwebs for googling stuff :) I'd like to think that I have the willpower to shut it all down and leave it that way.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:55 PM I tried that same idea a couple of years ago with my work and it was amazing how many people were shocked at the idea that I wouldn't be checking/responding to my email instantaneously. I put in an email rule to alert me of any message marked with high priority so that I was still contactable but it had to be important. And there was always the phone for really urgent matters. I did find it really good but today it's just total chaos and I wish I could get back to this way of working. My problem is that I'm trying to do a million things all at once, the phone rings constantly, and priorities change at the drop of a hat (or at the whim of the boss).
May 6th, 2008 at 11:32 AM Matta, you should read the chapter on email in Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Work Week. Of course, he goes way over the top with it, but there's some gold in there.