Peerside

The "Office Collar" shown below has got to be a joke but it drives home the point of how hard it is to work productively and interruption free in modern offices.

 http://www.scaryideas.com/print/4329/

Right now I'm working at home, nice bright window beside me, soft music in the background and multitasking a number of different tasks I need to get completed by Monday. In the office I could that the number of interruptions, distractions and noise would mean that I'd have to try and concentrate on doing things serially just to make sure they each got the attention they deserved.

Strangely though I don't blame the office layout which is pretty much ok, semi cubicle based, but rather little things like mobiles not being turned to vibrate or low when in the office, people taking hands free calls at their desks and of course my pet hate, one line non urgent questions. I've worked in "war room" like layouts before where everything is a lot more crowded but yet less distracting.

As an intern in Nortel years ago I worked in a relatively large plant where walking to ask someone a question took time and often required that you find that person somewhere on the plant floor. As a result you quickly get into the habit of prioritising which questions were urgent and which could wait. For those questions that could wait an email or voicemail ( this was Nortel after all ) asking the question and requesting a response later that day worked well and often just framing the question in the email with enough background even helped solve the problem. With pervasive email these days this should be even even easier but instead we seem to have forgotten how to prioritise many of the interruptions that I get every day unfortunately fall into the "not urgent" basket.

Just imagine which request you're more likely to give a better response to

1. Colleague emails you "When you have a chance can you drop by to discuss how this anti gravity widget works ? I've tried X, Y, Z but to no avail"
2. Colleague stands behind you as you're obviously focused, wearing headphones and proceeds to interrupt you to ask a question they haven't really thought through.
3. Colleague sends you and email then walks over to you with "I just sent you an email but ..."

For 2 and 3 I'm likely to suggest testing the antigravity device by taking it to the roof, for 1. I'll get to the email when I've time to give it the attention it deserves and suggest some lab trials and use of a test dummy - enough said.