Published March 25th, 2003 by Jim O'Halloran
Tyrany Revisited
A couple of weeks back I linked to Ole Eichhorn’s prevocative “Tyrany of Email” article. Ole has now revisited the subject, and gives us “Tyranny Revisited”, which addresses some of the feedback he got on the original.
Well, three hours is purely anecdotal, based on personal experience. Your mileage may vary. The central point was not three hours vs. two or four, it was that you need fairly long periods of uninterrupted time to be productive.
I’ve had me email notifications basically turned right down for the last week couple of weeks and found that it helps maintain the flow, but I still get people walking into my office, and the phone ringing.
A few weeks back I even tried putting my phone in “Do Not Disturb” mode, which only caused people to walk into my office to ask why my phone wasn’t working (this despite the fact that the screen on their phone would say “Do Not Disturb” whenever they tried to contact me).