He makes a rather radical suggestion that we should be finding ways to be apart rather than being in touch too much.
He sums up the post with - "So before you keep trying to keep in touch too much, think about stepping back and being quiet for a while. You’ll be surprised at how much more work you, and the person you were about to interrupt, will get done."
Great advice, but hard to follow. I'm pretty sure anytime I have anything to say everyone else in the office wants to hear it ;-)
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It makes sense to anyone who works on intellectually challenging projects in an office environment that interruptions are the enemy of productivity. We all know that there is a spool up time to start working on something (planning/organizing/gathering information/etc), followed by a period where we actually accomplish something and then a wrap up phase where we integrate what we have done and what is left to be done into our plans.
The net result of not being able to complete this cycle of plan/do/check is that we get stupider. We aren't working smarter we are vibrating between starting work, stopping work, forgetting where we were and restarting at the pre-accomplishing anything useful phase (over and over).
This oscillation causes stress because we feel stupid - we sense we aren't learning, we are reacting to all varieties of outside stimulation including people who want to talk to us about topics we aren't working on at the time, people who want to talk about topics that have nothing to do with anything we would ever be working on, phone calls, emails, instant messages, people talking to other people in our work area etc. etc. etc.
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It's crucial to distinguish a "conversation" from "talking". A conversation involves a meeting of the minds. In order for that to happen those minds have to be occupying the same space. Say I'm reading an email or paper about X and you (my coworker) happen to be working on Y - and one of us starts to talk about what we are working on. Unless we are both working on something quite trivial this will more than likely not result in a conversation, but that interruption may set us back significantly longer than the time it took to complete the verbal exchange.
Conversations are not trivial - listening is hard work. Hearing someone is easy, pretend listening is pretty easy, half listening while thinking about something else, or thinking of a response - ditto...but really listening, responding, restating, looking - that's hard. The deal is - we are by nature pretty lazy. We don't like hard stuff (no matter what we tell ourselves). You have to train yourself to listen and train yourself to focus (some people have more natural inclination in this regard but anyone can get better).
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I believe that one trait exceptional workers in a creative or intellectually challenging environment share is the ability to focus.
You can check your own score on this trait by thinking of times when you were so absorbed in what you were doing that when someone starts to talk to you it takes you some time to refocus and hear them. This total attention comes about when you are working on something difficult, or creatively challenging, that interests you. On the other hand, if your job involves routine, non-creative, simple tasks chances are you can multi-task and don't really need to focus on anything.
People that can focus their attention get the big bucks.
It's a silly myth that people can focus and multi-task on intellectual challenging creative tasks. I guarantee that if you have chosen a worthy task that you aren't going to be doing anything other than working really hard on very specific things related exactly to what you are trying to accomplish.
People that can work in a chatter-filled area filled with constant little interruptions make good Air Traffic Controllers or McDonald's employees. Why is this?
Because this type of work has clear definitions for what is to be done. There are rules, follow the rules and you'll do okay. You can think of other areas where this is true - for example pilots are good multi-taskers. Why?
Again because they are following a set of rules, they have been trained by repetition to repeat certain tasks, they have checklists and a variety of cockpit devices to alert them if they forget something important. If you are a knowledge worker - an engineer, web designer, software programmer, scientist etc. this is not the case.
Creative intellectually challenging work is not so rule-based. People who like to learn, like to think, are drawn to the type of work where they can use their minds. They also tend to not do so well when forced into non-thinking rule-based roles.
I'm all for enjoying yourself at work, interacting with co-workers, having trivial/funny/stress breaking moments. The problem is, as usual, striking a balance. If you are being constantly interrupted by the trivial/funny/stress breaking moments to the point that you aren't learning/accomplishing, then obviously that's a stress producer.
Finally I'd say everything isn't for everybody. Not everyone has to, wants to, or can - work in an office as an engineer, programmer, or in some other work-role that requires extended periods of quiet time to accomplish tasks. It's a big wide world out there, find a niche that works for you.
I'm pretty sure whatever you choose to do - the ability to focus, listen and to participate in conversations will serve you well.
