Indistractable Page 8

  Just as bright vests reduce prescription errors, a screen sign sends a signal to coworkers that you’re indistractable.

  While the screen sign can be understood by just about anyone, I recommend discussing the purpose with your coworkers. This conversation could inspire them to do the same and can serve as an entry point to a discussion about the importance of working without distraction.

  Sometimes, though, we need an even more explicit way to signal our request for interruption-free time, particularly when we’re working from home. Using the same principles to block unwanted external triggers, my wife bought a hard-to-miss headpiece on Amazon for just a few dollars. She calls it the “concentration crown,” and the built-in LEDs light up her head to send an impossible-to-ignore message. When she wears it, she’s clearly letting our daughter (and me) know not to interrupt her unless it’s an emergency. It works like a charm.

  When working from home, family members can be a source of distraction. My wife’s “concentration crown” lets us know she is indistractable.

  Whether it’s a vest, a screen sign, or a light-up crown, the way to reduce unwanted external triggers from other people is to display a clear signal that you do not want to be interrupted. Doing so will help colleagues or family members pause and assess their own behaviors before they break your concentration.

  REMEMBER THIS

  •Interruptions lead to mistakes. You can’t do your best work if you’re frequently distracted.

  •Open-office floor plans increase distraction.

  •Defend your focus. Signal when you do not want to be interrupted. Use a screen sign or some other clear cue to let people know you are indistractable.

  Chapter 15

  Hack Back Email

  Email is the curse of the modern worker. Some basic math reveals just how big the problem is. The average office-dwelling professional receives a hundred messages per day. At just two minutes per email, that adds up to three hours and twenty minutes per day. If an average workday is nine to five minus an hour for lunch, then email eats up nearly half the day.

  Realistically, though, that’s a very conservative estimate, since those three hours and twenty minutes don’t include the wasted time needed to get back on task between checking emails. In fact, a study published in the International Journal of Information Management found office workers took an average of sixty-four seconds after checking email to reorient themselves and get back to work. Given the hundreds of times per day we check our devices, those minutes can add up.

  Lest you think email time is well spent, researchers writing in the Harvard Business Review have concluded that an astonishing number of workplace emails are an utter waste. When it comes to the hours managers spend on email, they estimate that “25 percent of that time is consumed reading emails that should not have been sent to that particular manager and 25 percent is spent responding to emails that the manager should never have answered.” In other words, about half the time we spend on email is as productive as counting cracks in the ceiling.

  Why is email such a persistent problem? The answer can be found in understanding our psychology. Email is perhaps the mother of all habit-forming products. For one thing, it provides a variable reward. As the psychologist B. F. Skinner famously discovered, pigeons pecked at levers more often when given a reward on a variable schedule of reinforcement. Similarly, email’s uncertainty keeps us checking and pecking. It provides good news and bad, exciting information as well as frivolity, messages from our closest loved ones and from anonymous strangers. All that uncertainty provides a powerful draw to see what we might find when we next check our inboxes. As a result, we keep clicking or pulling to refresh in a never-ending effort to quell the discomfort of anticipation.

  Second, we have a strong tendency for reciprocity—responding in kind to the actions of another. When someone says “Hello” or extends their hand to shake our own, we feel the urge to reciprocate—not doing so breaks a strong social norm and feels cold. Though the grace of reciprocity works well in person, it can lead to a host of problems online.

  Finally, and perhaps most materially, email is a tool we have little choice but to use. For most of us, our jobs depend on it, and it is so woven into our daily work and personal lives that giving it up would be a threat to our livelihoods.

  However, like many things in life that take more time and attention than we’d like, we can get email under control. There are techniques we can deploy as part of our working routines to defuse the unhealthy magnetism of email. Let’s focus on a few techniques that deliver the best results with the least effort.

  The amount of time we spend on email can be boiled down to an equation. The total time spent on email per day (T) is a function of the number of messages received (n) multiplied by the average time (t) spent on each message, so T = n × t. I like to remember “TNT” to remind me how email can blow up a well-planned day.

  To reduce the total amount of time we spend on email per day, we need to address both the n and t variables. Let’s first explore ways to reduce n, the total number of messages received.

  Given our tendency for reciprocity, when we send a message it is likely the receiver will reply right back, perpetuating the endless cycle.

  To receive fewer emails, we must send fewer emails.

  It seems obvious, but most of us don’t act in accordance with this basic fact. So strong is our need to reciprocate that we reply to messages moments after they’re received—nights, weekends, holidays, it doesn’t seem to matter.

  Most emails we send and receive are not urgent. Yet our brain’s weakness for variable rewards makes us treat every message, regardless of form, as if it’s time sensitive. That tendency conditions us to check constantly, return replies, and bark out whatever requests come to mind instantaneously. These are all mistakes.

  OPEN UP OFFICE HOURS

  In my case, I receive dozens of emails every day asking to discuss something related to my books or articles. I love talking with my readers, but if I responded to each email, I wouldn’t have time for anything else. Instead, to reduce the number of emails I send and receive, I schedule “office hours.” Readers can book a fifteen-minute time slot with me on my website at NirAndFar.com/schedule-time-with-me.

  Next time you receive a nonurgent question over email, try replying with something like, “I’ve held some time on Tuesday and Thursday from 4:00 to 5:00 pm. If this is still a concern then, please stop by and let’s discuss this further.” You can even set up an online scheduling tool like mine to let people book a slot.

  You’d be amazed how many things become irrelevant when you give them a little time to breathe.

  By asking the other party to wait, you’ve given them the chance to come up with an answer for themselves—or, as is often the case, time for the problem to just disappear under the weight of some other priority.

  But what if the sender still needs to discuss the question and can’t figure out the problem for themselves? All the better! Difficult questions are better handled in person than over email, where there is more risk of misunderstandings. The bottom line is that asking people to discuss complex matters during regular office hours will lead to better communication and fewer emails.

  SLOW DOWN AND DELAY DELIVERY

  Following the maxim that the key to receiving fewer emails is sending fewer emails, it’s worth considering how we can slow down the email ping-pong game by sending emails well after you write them. After all, who made the rule that every email needs to be sent as soon as you’re done writing it?

  Thankfully, technology can help. Instead of banging out a reply and hitting send right away, email programs like Microsoft Office and tools like Mixmax for Gmail allow us to delay a message’s delivery. Whenever I reply to an email, I ask myself, “When’s the latest this person needs to see this reply?”

  By clicking just one extra button before sending, the email goes out of my inbox and off my plate but is held back from being delivered to the recipie
nt until the predetermined time I selected. Thus, fewer emails sent per day results in fewer emails sent back per day.

  Not only does delaying delivery allow time for the matter to resolve through other means, it also makes it less likely I’ll receive emails when I don’t want them. For example, while you might enjoy clearing out your inbox on a Friday afternoon, delaying delivery until Monday prevents you from stressing out your coworkers and helps protect your weekend from relaxation-killing replies.

  ELIMINATE UNWANTED MESSAGES

  Finally, there’s one more highly effective method for reducing inbound emails. Every day, we’re targeted by an endless torrent of spam, marketing emails, and newsletters. Some are helpful, but most are not.

  How do we stop email messages we never want to hear from again? If the email is a newsletter you signed up for in the past but no longer find useful, the best thing you can do is hit the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email. As someone who writes such a newsletter, I can tell you that we newsletter writers want you to unsubscribe if you are no longer interested. We pay email service providers per email address on our list, so we prefer to send only to those who find them useful.

  However, some spammy marketers make it hard to find the Unsubscribe button, or might even stubbornly keep sending you emails even after you’ve unsubscribed. For such cases, I recommend sending them into the “black hole.” I use SaneBox, a simple program that runs in the background as I use email. Whenever I encounter an email I absolutely never want to hear from again, I click a button to send that sender’s email to my Sane-BlackHole folder. Once there, SaneBox’s software ensures I’ll never hear from that sender again.

  Of course, managing unwanted email messages takes time, but by reducing the likelihood of unwanted messages creeping into your inbox, you’ll see the number dwindle to a trickle instead of a torrent.

  Now that we’ve covered ways to reduce the number of emails we receive (the n in our equation), let’s transition to the second variable—t, the amount of time we spend writing emails.

  There’s mounting evidence that processing your email in batches is much more efficient and less stress inducing than checking it throughout the day. This is because our brains take time to switch between tasks, so it’s better to focus on answering emails all at once. I know what you’re thinking—you can’t wait all day to check email. I understand. I too need to check my inbox to make sure there’s nothing truly urgent.

  Checking email isn’t so much the problem; it’s the habitual rechecking that gets us into trouble.

  See if this sounds familiar: An icon tells you that you have an email, so you click and scroll through your inbox. While there, you read message after message to see if anything requires an immediate reply, leaving anything that doesn’t for another time. Later in the day, you open your inbox and, forgetting precisely what was in the messages you read earlier, you reopen them. But you don’t have time to respond to them all. Later that evening, you go through the emails again. If you’re anything like I used to be, you might reopen some messages an embarrassing number of times. What a waste!

  PLAY TAG

  We tend to believe that the most important thing about an email is its content, but that’s not exactly right. The most important aspect of an email, from a time management perspective, is how urgently it needs a reply. Because we forget when the sender needs a reply, we waste time rereading the message.

  The solution to this mania is simple: only touch each email twice. The first time we open an email, before closing it, answer this question: When does this email require a response? Tagging each email as either “Today” or “This Week” attaches the most important information to each new message, preparing it for the second (and last) time we open it. Of course, for super-urgent, email-me-right-now-type messages, go ahead and respond. Messages that don’t need a response at all should be deleted or archived immediately.

  Note that I’m not telling you to tag emails by topic or categories, only by when the message requires a response. Tagging emails in this way frees your mind from distraction because you know you’ll reply during the time you’ve specifically allocated for this purpose in your timeboxed schedule.

  In my case, I give my inbox a quick perusal before my morning coffee. Tagging each new email by when it requires a reply takes no more than ten minutes. It gives me peace of mind to know nothing will fall through the cracks. I can leave those messages alone and do focused work until it’s time to reply.

  My daily schedule includes dedicated time for replying to emails I’ve tagged “Today.” It’s much quicker to respond to the urgent messages than to have to wade through all my emails to figure out which need a response by the end of the day. In addition, I reserve a three-hour timebox each week to plow through the less urgent messages I’ve tagged “This Week.” Finally, at the end of my week, I review my schedule to assess whether the time on my calendar for emailing was sufficient and adjust my timeboxed schedule for the week ahead.

  Why not quickly type out a response when you first open a message? Taking two minutes to reply to an email on your phone doesn’t sound like a big deal, until you realize that with the hundreds of messages we receive per day, those two minutes can quickly add up. Soon, two minutes turn into ten, fifteen, or sixty, and you’ve wasted your day frantically banging out replies instead of focusing on what you really want to achieve.

  Slaying the messaging monster requires a host of weapons to hack back this persistent source of distraction, but by experimenting with these proven techniques, we can rein in the triggers that take us off track.

  REMEMBER THIS

  •Break down the problem. Time spent on email (T) is a function of the number of messages received (n) multiplied by the average time (t) spent per message: T = n × t.

  •Reduce the number of messages received. Schedule office hours, delay when messages are sent, and reduce time-wasting messages from reaching your inbox.

  •Spend less time on each message. Label emails by when each message needs a response. Reply to emails during a scheduled time on your calendar.

  Chapter 16

  Hack Back Group Chat

  Jason Fried says group chat is “like being in an all-day meeting with random participants and no agenda.” This is especially notable because the company Fried founded, Basecamp, makes a popular group-chat app. But Fried understands it’s in his company’s interests to make sure his customers don’t burn out. He offers several pieces of advice for teams using a group-chat app, whether they use Basecamp, Slack, WhatsApp, or other services.

  “What we’ve learned is that group chat used sparingly in a few very specific situations makes a lot of sense,” Fried wrote in an online post. “What makes a lot less sense is chat as the primary, default method of communication inside an organization. A slice, yes. The whole pie, no . . . All sorts of eventual bad happens when a company begins thinking one-line-at-a-time most of the time.”

  Fried believes the tools we use can also change the way we feel at work, and consequently advises using group chat sparingly. “Frazzled, exhausted, and anxious? Or calm, cool, and collected? These aren’t just states of mind, they are conditions caused by the kinds of tools we use, and the kinds of behaviors those tools encourage.” Even though the real-time nature of group chat is exactly what makes it unique, Fried believes, “right now should be the exception, not the rule.”

  Here are four basic rules for effectively managing group chat:

  RULE 1: USE IT LIKE A SAUNA

  We should use group chat in the same way we use other synchronous communication channels. We wouldn’t choose to participate in a conference call that lasted for a whole day, so the same goes for group chat. Fried recommends we “treat chat like a sauna—stay a while but then get out . . . it’s unhealthy to stay too long.”

  Alternatively, we might schedule a team meeting on group chat so that everyone is on at the same time. When used this way, it can be a great way to reduce in-person meetings.<
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  It’s telling that the CEO of a group-chat company advises limiting the use of its product. And yet, many organizations that use these services encourage employees to lurk in the group-chat sauna all day long. This is a corrosive practice that individuals can’t always change on their own. We’ll tackle dysfunctional company culture later in the book.

  RULE 2: SCHEDULE IT

  The single-line commentaries, GIFs, and emoji commonly used in group chats create an ongoing stream of external triggers, often moving us further away from traction. To hack back, schedule time in your day to catch up on group chats, just as you would for any other task in your timeboxed calendar.

  It’s important to set colleagues’ expectations by letting them know when you plan to be unavailable. You can put them at ease by assuring them that you will contribute to the conversation during an allocated time later in the day, but until then you shouldn’t feel guilty for turning on the Do Not Disturb feature while doing focused work.

  RULE 3: BE PICKY

  When it comes to group chat, be selective about who’s invited to the conversation. Fried advises, “Don’t get everyone on the line. The smaller the chat, the better the chat.” Continuing the conference-call metaphor, he states, “A conference call with three people is perfect. A call with six or seven is chaotic and woefully inefficient. Group chats are no different. Be careful inviting the whole gang when you only need a few.” The key is to make sure that everyone present is able to add and extract value from being a part of the conversation.