Interruption Management

Friday, May 18, 2018

Junk Mail Likely to Never Die - Interruption Management

Louise Story, writing in the New York Times 12 years ago, shed light on why in the age of the Internet and email, junk mail is proliferating:

“United States Postal Service says marketers sent more than 114 billion pieces of direct mail, increase of about 15 percent from five years ago; volume of bulk mail, which is all direct mail, exceeded first class in last year; advertisers like it that mail ads, which do not get snagged in spam filters, can be aimed at just right customers and be monitored for effectiveness; those traits are increasingly important to companies as they target American public into finer and finer categories; some advertising executives comments.”

And it's still happening!

Labels: advertising, filters, internet, junk email, junk mail, marketing, security, spam, web

Saturday, May 12, 2018

Disruption Likely: A Hacked Password - Interruption Management

Using any popular passwords is highly risky. A hacked password equals no breathing space. Instead make up something more complex, with random letters and numbers, such as ij6ko40d1. Or use an acronym and numbers known only to you, such a mwdSin12 ("my wonderful dog Skippy is now 12").

These are a hackers delight:
      1. 123456
    2. password
      3. 12345
      4. 12345678
      5. qwerty

      6. 123456789
      7. 1234
      8. baseball
      9. dragon
    10. football

    11. 1234567
    12. monkey
    13. letmein
    14. abc123
    15. 111111

Labels: disrupt, hack, password, risk

Wednesday, May 02, 2018

Text in Class, Fail Later - Interruption Management

In a USA Today article: "As social media become nearly inescapable on college campuses, a pair of recently published studies supports what many professors already have concluded: Students using Facebook or text messaging during a lecture tend to do worse when quizzed later."

Labels: concentration, distraction, Facebook, focus, multi-task, performance, social media, texting

Friday, April 27, 2018

Adopt a Habit that Works - Interruption Management

According to Michael Masterson, interviewed in Bottomline Secrets, one simple habit that leads to success, is to get up early! "Early to rise" he says is not an absolute mandate for success, but most successful people I know get to work before their colleagues."

"Getting to work early provides you with quiet time that can be profitably spent before the rest of the world starts working. Arriving early also sends a strong message to colleagues and bosses that you are on top of your game. Early birds are viewed as energetic, organized and ambitious. People who arrive late and leave late look as if they're not in control."

Labels: advice, getting up early, habit, rising early, self-help, sleep, success, work

Monday, April 16, 2018

Put an End to Multitasking - Interruption Management

Researchers at the Federal Aviation Administration and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor found that while doing multiple tasks at once might appear to be more efficient, it actually is more time consuming and in some cases poses health risks.

Four groups of young adults participated in four experiments. They were all asked to carry out a series of tasks and switch between different tasks, some complicated, such as solving a math problem, and others easier and more familiar, such as identifying a geometric shape. A participant's performance speed was measured as the tasks were carried out.

The findings: human capacity for multitasking decidely has its limits. Participants lost time in performance speed when switching tasks and they lost more time as the task became more complex.

Labels: complexity, distraction, interruption, limitation, multi-tasking, performance, study, time management

Sunday, April 08, 2018

Remain Informed, Avoid Overwhelm - Interruption Management

How can you stay informed without being overwhelmed?

* Choose to acquire knowledge that supports or interests you, not what you simply happen to ingest, or think you have to ingest.

* Look for broad-based patterns and trends, as opposed to quickly disappearing fads and forgettable trivia.

* Learn to delegate some of your reading to your most junior staff. After only 15 minutes of instruction, and armed with a list of key words, they will be able to rather easily identify articles of interest to you.

* Prune your files regularly and ruthlessly. Constantly throw out what does not support you.

Labels: choice, delegation, information overload, organization, personal growth, proactivity, productivity, time managment

Sunday, April 01, 2018

Hello, Paperless Office? - Interruption Management

Tiffany Wilken in her essay on the myth of the paperless office notes that, "paper usage seems to be increasing, rather than decreasing." So what's up?

Though we take advantage of digital technology for information searches, email, chats, and games, we don't quite trust it. We've all been burned by our computers at one time or another. In the back of our minds is the haunting doubt, "What if my computer crashes and I lose all my files?" A hard copy back-up still feels safer than something on hard-disk.

“The major obstacle to reaching the paperless office may be socio-technical, according to a report funded by the Electronic Document Systems Foundation. People like the smell of opening a book. We may simply prefer paper…” !

Labels: information safety, modern life, office, paper, technology