Interruption Management

Saturday, September 15, 2018

Driving While Distracted - Interruption Management

An article in American Psychological Association:

"Cell phones may be convenient but there's one place they seem to do more harm than good -- and that's behind the steering wheel. Psychological research is showing that when drivers use cell phones, whether hand-held or hands-off, their attention to the road drops and driving skills become even worse than if they had too much to drink. Epidemiological research has found that cell-phone use is associated with a four-fold increase in the odds of getting into an accident - a risk comparable to that of driving with blood alcohol at the legal limit."

"But cell phones aren't the only cause for concern. A host of emerging, even more engaging and time-consuming in-car technologies, such as navigational displays and Internet browsers, although developed to make long commutes more productive, also present new challenges for drivers. Cognitive psychologists and human-factors engineers are teaming up to document how these new gadgets affect driving performance and traffic safety."

Labels: alarming, attention, cell phones, challenges, distract, driving skills, harm, risk, safety, steering wheel

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Brainpower in Complex Times - Interruption Management

Here are insights from an article worth considering:

"How to Think: Managing Brain Resources in an Age of Complexity" by Ed Boyden in Technology Review is a brilliant article, excerpted here:

"When I applied for my faculty job at the MIT Media Lab, I had to write a teaching statement. One of the things I proposed was to teach a class called "How to Think," which would focus on how to be creative, thoughtful, and powerful in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure. In the process of thinking about this, I composed 10 rules...

1. Synthesize new ideas constantly. Never read passively. Annotate, model, think, and synthesize while you read...

2. Learn how to learn, rapidly... Be able to rapidly prototype ideas. Know how your brain works.

3. Work backward from your goal. Or else you might never get there...

4. Always have a long-term plan. Even if you change it every day...

5. Make contingency maps. Draw all the things you need to do on a big piece of paper, and find out which things depend on other things...

6. Collaborate.

7. Make your mistakes quickly... Document what led to the error so that you learn what to recognize, and then move on...

8. As you develop skills, write up best-practices protocols... Instinct-ualize conscious control.

9. Document everything obsessively. If you don't record it, it may never have an impact on the world..

10. Keep it simple... If you can spend two days thinking of ways to make it 10 times simpler,
do it...

Labels: brain, contingency, documentation, education, goal, learning, mind, planning, proactive, productivity, thinking

Monday, September 03, 2018

Monday, August 27, 2018

Overload to the Max - Interruption Management

Twelve years ago, this appeared in the news and is either an indication of capitalism run amok or simply the inability of management to contribute to passengers’ sense of breathing space:

“US Airways to place ads on barf bags”
PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- US Airways wants to make the most out of a nauseating situation. The Tempe, Arizona-based airline plans to sell advertisements on its air-sickness bags -- those pint-sized expandable envelopes tucked between the in-flight magazines and safety cards.

"They're in every back seat pocket," said spokesman Phil Gee. "We figure while it's there, why don't we make it multipurpose?

– what’s next? Toilet paper rolls with ads on each sheet?

Labels: advertisement, advertising, airlines, information overload, intrusion, marketing

Monday, August 20, 2018

Handle One Thing at a Time - Interruption Management

People are forever asking me how to handle the array of of items and tasks confronting them. If you have six priority items competing for your time and attention, rank them #1 to #6. Then, tackle #1 all the way to completion, or as far as you can take it. Perhaps you have to give it to somebody else; maybe someone has to approve it or sign off on it. This should not hinder you from beginning #2.

Give each task your complete time and attention. Continue until you are finished. No method for handling six assignments is faster than the one that was just described. That is how you focus on the task at hand.

Labels: attention, concentration, focus, priority, rank, self management, time

Monday, August 13, 2018

Employing Interruptions for Gain - Interruption Management

The London subway system was experiencing a growing problem of unwanted vandals and thieves in their tunnels. So a plan was devised to play classical music and opera, such as Vivaldi, Mozart, and Pavarotti, in the effort to make unwelcome visitors uncomfortable with the subway environment.

Studies have shown that this type of music is unfamiliar and unacceptable to the thugs who hang out in the subway. Making them miserable with music they don't enjoy will drive them away. By making the subway tunnels and stations a caustic environment to the nature of thieves and vandals, the vandalism and thievery were greatly decreased.

Labels: ., classical music, environment, interruption, music, thieves, vandalism