Time Out

I’m working on my Time Management chapter and feel as though I’ve wasted the entire morning on new research on this valuable topic. It continues to be the popular topic everyone wants to receive training on.

I discovered a great blog, LifeHacker. These guys are working really hard and put up multiple posts and very relevant information on becoming more productive and getting things done. Especially their What Productivity Studies Really Show post.  The paragraph that reads:

Over the years this site’s been in existance, studies have shown that email kills concentration more than smoking pot does, that you’ve got 11 minutes before the next interruption, that dual monitors increase productivity, that no one understands the intended tone of your email, that email overload costs the American economy more than $700 billion a year, and that multitasking kills your ability to focus and get things done.

Wow, I didn’t realize getting two monitors increased productivity. I’ve written about “skill shifting” before- it’s the time and momentum it takes to shift from one task to another. And somewhere in all my reading today I read that it takes an average of 25 minutes to get back on track.

Yes, I believe most of us are wasting time or making bad decisions on our time. My solution: Time Out.