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“Interruptions are the enemy of productivity,” says Jason Fried, founder of 37signals. “Interruptions break your day into small, incoherent pieces and prevent you from getting in the zone.”
Fried should know. While in the zone, he and his colleagues created a suite of productivity software for designers, publishers, marketers, and small businesses, including BaseCamp™, the much-heralded project management and collaboration software, and Campfire™, an easy-to-use web-based group chat tool.
Fried was speaking — without interruption — at the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) Summit last week, and he recounted how he and an overseas colleague achieved spectacular productivity working individually and then later sharing their work through email and instant messages. (The process was similar to posting work on Fried’s product BaseCamp™.)
So appealing was their long-distance collaboration, the two agreed to work together in Chicago, where Fried is based, to achieve even greater creative success. But once in the same office and able to talk whenever necessary, productivity plummeted.
What happened? Fried claimed it was nothing more than interruptions — constant, well-meaning, and destructive.
Fried likens work, which he clearly loves, to REM sleep. Uninterrupted, work and sleep offer us deep, restorative benefits. But interrupted work — just like interrupted sleep — results in degraded performance, irritability, and unhappiness.
What to do? Fried is full of suggestions for encouraging innovation and boosting productivity:
Encourage alone time
Fried suggested periods of no talking — say from 1 p.m. on. (OK readers, is this realistic? I’ll admit it, for a writer, alone time is productivity nirvana, but it’s hard to achieve during the business day.)
In our office of designers, writers, developers, and the like, we don’t mandate alone time, but we do use yellow caution tape strung across our workspaces to warn others off when we’re on deadline — or simply in the zone. It’s fun, and it sends an unambiguous message: Interrupt me at your peril!
Severely limit meetings
Fried said meetings are “toxic, costly time wasters that convey an abysmally small amount of information per minute.” And they “procreate.” At this point in the presentation, many of the 600 interactive marketing professionals in the room were nodding vigorously. Fried then suggested standing meetings. Literally. As in on your feet. Not the standing meetings most of us now attend, as in every Wednesday at 9 a.m. (Hmmm. I’m trying to image a standing standing boardroom meeting.)
Keep teams (really) small
Fried suggested two people. (There was an audible gasp from the audience of 600.) My colleagues and I have achieved success using two-person teams: Writer + Designer. Information Architect + Researcher. Producer + Developer. Account Executive + Creative. Does this work in your business?
Collaborate passively, rather than actively
Fried suggested accomplishing your part of the work, then using email, instant messaging, or BaseCamp™ as a way to receive comments from your team, rather than relying on — guess what — interruption.
Fried has an interesting name. Mispronounced, it’s “fried,” that state we all attain after a day of too many meetings, emails, and interruptions. Perhaps it’s significant that this productivity evangelist’s name is pronounced “freed,” as in free from the shackles of an unproductive work day.
So, do you agree? Is a workplace free of interruptions a workplace full of productivity? Do interruptions hamper innovation?
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Comments
Interesting post, Gwyneth. MarketingProfs is a virtual company, and we keep in touch via email and sometimes IM. It can get a little nuts to spend your day "interupted" by email, to the point that I sometimes feel a need to walk away from Outlook just to GET SOMETHING DONE! Sometimes we wonder whether we'd be more productive if we were all in the same physical location -- or even time zone! -- but maybe, like Fried, we wouldn't.
That being said, I see "innovation" and "productivity" in two different buckets. To me, interuptions absolutely hamper productivity. But sometimes true innovation comes from interuption... challenging, "Are you sure that's the best way to do that?"
Posted by: Ann Handley | 10.10.07
Hi Gwyneth:
Great topic.
In a previous life I ran a company that specialized in new product and brand innovation. The most creative and productive people required a mix of solitude and collaboration; they always made it very clear when they were open to interruptions...or not, simply by leaving their doors open or by closing them.
Social creatures that we are, it seems that in some (I would venture to say most) companies, closed doors signify that something bad is about to occur, or that the individual who's closed their door is anti-social. (What are doors for if not to be closed once in awhile?) Perhaps being more comfortable with solitude - in reasonable doses - could make all businesses more productive.
Posted by: Anne | 10.10.07
The most productive creative companies I have run were when the people were in an open environment. They were able to ask each other questions as need to complete a job or come up with creative ideas.
I think Fried is just an A type personality and that works for him. Most of us already know what works for us. For me it is a mix of collaboration and some noodle time alone.
I would hate to work for Fried!
Posted by: Harry hallman | 10.10.07
Hi Ann, Anne, and Harry,
I wanted to answer all of you earlier, but I was, ahem, interrupted.
@Ann: You’re right. Productivity and innovation are quite different, but I believe that intensely productive work can set the stage for innovation. It makes the mind elastic and ready to stretch in new directions.
The barraged-by-email syndrome? No fun. I experienced that briefly (and intensely) in the corporate world. Maybe MarketingProfs should explore BaseCamp? I haven’t used it, but Larsen’s California office loves the way it centralizes information and gives everyone the option to respond at their own pace
@Anne: Yes! It’s the combination of solitude and collaboration that’s so magical. One of my favorite quotes is from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (can you believe I spelled that?) He says successful creative people “build alternation between inner-directed reflection and intense social interaction into their daily routine.”
@Harry: You may not want to work for Fried, but he appears to be a cool, relaxed guy with a healthy sense of humor. I chatted with him briefly at the conference Happy Hour, and he was open to the suggestion that his keynote presentation — itself, a very long “meeting” — might be considered a “toxic, costly time waster”!
Posted by: Gwyneth Dwyer | 10.10.07
Well, I guess it depends on the interruption. Trivial interruptions that add no value: bad. Interruptions that help your business do better: good.
I would not say that interruptions are ipso facto bad but trivial interruptions are the problem.
I think Steven Covey has it right. If my memory serves, he said there are 4 categories:
1. Urgent and Important. Good.
2. Urgent and NOT Important. Bad. These are often others attempting to impose urgency on something that appears urgent but is not really important.
3. Not Urgent BUT Important. Good.
5. Not Urgent and Not Important. Sort of good in that you can choose the time and place (e.g., reading the comics).
Posted by: Neil Anuskiewicz | 10.11.07
It's unreal to work without interruptions. It's real to let your team organize their working environment themselves. This way they feel more comfortable and thus become more productive. However as for me, I couldn't do that in Basecamp. I chose Wrike http://www.wrike.com/ instead. It's a great tool for collaboration and more. Each employee is free to use it as a personal tool. That's what my team loves about it.
Posted by: Gram Nickler | 10.12.07
Being from Chicago, until my recent relo to Houston, I'm a big fan of Jason and 37 Signals. But more in theme than substance. Basecamp is ok, but please, it's by no means amazing. My teams have used it several times, but found it very limited in its utility to help manage both innovation and productivity. That said, Jason's message is most valuable if we use it to remind us that innovation vs. productivity is a balancing act requiring a blend of freedom and focus. It's an art, not a science. One pursues the balance, they never fully achieve it.
Posted by: Matt Williams | 10.12.07