“Busy Day” = Uncontactable = Productivity
The trend is for us to communicate more and more in increasingly new ways – phone, email, Facebook, Twitter, IM… and we are becoming a “mostly available” society. People don’t dare remove themselves for long in case they miss something. The downside is that we are constantly distracted. Sometimes, by the time I’ve attended to all my business communications, half of the day is gone, and my brain is no longer fresh enough to do inspired work.
Eventually something needs to happen, to give us relief. I suggest, just like vacations, we each nominate one day a week where we take a break, to get more work done. That’s right, not a break from work, a break for work. A break from communications. Set up an autoresponder for everyone who contacts you personally by email, saying today is your Busy Day and you’ll get back to them the following day. Turn this on the night before. Likewise, set you IM to “away” with the same message. Turn off your phone, the night before.
When you wake up (in my case) or get to work, you’ll feel a sense of freedom. That’s if you can resist the urge to check for important messages. Then, get started on that job that requires your constant attention all day – perhaps writing an article, fixing a buggy program, whatever.
It will take a brave person to initiate this – perhaps I won’t do it myself – but it could catch on, and become part of our modern vocabulary: sorry, Wednesday is my Busy Day.