I agree with the author of this story.

I work temporary projects when not at university (detached IT work), and I've worked at a great number of different types of organisations, from non profit, to governmental to for-profit organisations.

I've seen many different approaches applied: some organisations that do complete content filtering and block every port, and others that are wide open without any filtering.

Personally, I think there ought to be a balance. Blocking pornographic sites and such is very well justified, I suppose we could all attest to that. Other things such as facebook, msn (or aim and so on), are slightly different.

One thing to take into consideration is that people might try to find a way around it, and at that point it becomes a cat/mouse game.

With responsible and good employees, there shouldn't be a problem with these type of services. Ocassionally when it's very quiet at work, such as right now, Im browsing lifehacker. It's not costing me any efficiency, and stops me from rotting away behind my desk. I think being able to check the news and other such services also allows employees to take tiny bitesize breaks inbetween, which is a good idea.

A previous employer network admin kept consistently trying to block any non-pertinent websites and all ports, so I couldn't have the radio on for me and my colleagues. Well, long story short, I worked around it each time, and found a way to do it regardless. At the end of the day, it cost him valuable time, it cost me valuable time, and I still get my way.

This is why Im for the point of view of a mixed balance, where extremes such as pornography are blocked, but most other services such as email websites, perhaps even msn remains unblocked. The responsibility lies with the employee at the end of the day.

unruled

LAtely i've been finding more and more articles about productivity, being productive and specially the famous GTD. Well, i've seen some GTD software, tried some, and found out i lose more time writing down my To-Do things than actually doing them.
In my work days i tend to do things on the spot instead of getting them done later. If i can't do them right there, then i use my own memory to do them later. Sure, i do forget somethings sometimes, but then again, who doesn't?

ficcionista

I think part of it is that people hate and fear the things that are new--even the ones that they are simultaneously embracing. It probably happened with the automobile, the electric refrigerator, the microwave oven, the telephone, etc. We all seem to collectively delight in ruminating about how they are the ruination of our heath and culture.

Take the cell phone. Walk up to anyone you meet and begin a conversation about how much you hate them, you're sure to find quick agreement. Ditto with email: suddenly everyone is a communications expert, telling you all about how in-person interaction is always better and that we're rapidly degenerating into a race of reclusive, antisocial nerds.

And I think it's entirely bullshit. People just have a lot of fear about the technologies that appear out of nowhere and become so pervasive in our lives.

Scott D. Feldstein

Exactly!

Productivity is no democracy. What serves one could well not serve the other. 100 people voting `THIS is the way' may in general be nice but what if all the people that vote just have the same specific problem. The 101th person may have another problem and `THE way' may just be a `no way'.

Unfortunately, people are sensible to `going with the masses' even if they know it's not a solution to their problem (check out: [www.mindpowernews.com])

My advice: be rational, and by THAT stay productive!

Arutha

Oh my! This is a dangerous road you're going down here. If you start questioning these 'studies', then you're going to realize that different ones come out all the time contradicting each other.

Then, you'll find that not only are studies biased by who commissioned them, but that many 'scientists' cook their findings to gin up grant money to 'study' their bogus findings.

Once you're at this point, it's not much of a jump to notice how our politicians use these sensational nonsense studies to restrict our freedom and control our behavior.

Don't do it! Just take the blue pill, forget this ever happened!

drewls

Bravo Gina! [Standing ovation]

This paragraph in particular out to be framed and hung on the wall:

The longer I do this, the more I suspect that a good part of the "information overload" story is a myth cooked up by folks who don't know how to use the internet well in order to demonize something they don't understand. I get more done via email and surfing the web than my parents ever did using phones and libraries, even when I'm having a bad day and switch to my email application the moment I see a new message notification.

Great stuff. Thanks.

pkoutoul

I totally agree. The people who whine about there inbox in my office are the ones who don't try to manage it.

You don't have to respond to every message.
Not all messages have to be saved either.
I say, don't copy me unless you have to or I ask.
I don't respond if I can't do anything.
I don't respond by replying to all.
I try to send one message that clearly addresses several topics, that way my messages get read instead of pushed to some miscellaneous folder.

If 9 out of 10 of your messages are junk, useless or otherwise unapplicable information, you only get 10% of my attention.

eyekanspel

I'm gonna go with the real heretics, who argue that the unqualified focus on "productivity" itself is a big chunk of the problem. Every time someone tells me that they don't have time to cook dinner for themselves, I think of how relaxing that half-hour is for me, and how the alternative is to order in something that's less tasty, less healthy and more expensive. In other words, work-work-work-work-work-work (and forget the 9hr work day -- you're always on call), go home and either order for delivery, or maybe you've stopped on the way home to get something that can be thrown in the microwave...More efficient, yes, but who said efficiency was the purpose of life?

ShanghaiLil

Well said, well said. It's nice to see a healthy dose of critical thought around here.

Now with a few (10+) years in the professional realm under my belt, I feel I can say the following with at least a baseline level of credibility:

Productivity is, in a sense, meaningless. Those things which are important to you, or your boss, or your client, as the case may be, get done. Those things which are less important fall by the wayside. In business, most (but not all) things that rise to the level of "important" involve relatively larger sums of money.

The above holds true in your personal life as well. If someone tells you they're "too busy" to get together, etc., they're actually informing you (politely) of your relatively low placement within their internal priority list. No reason to be bothered by this--it just 'is what it is', as they say. Everyone does it. People make time for what's most important to them, whether they admit it to themselves or not.

So forget about productivity--just get done what's important to you. If you're not satisfied with what's getting done, revisit your priorities.

onesix18

Nice op-ed and excellent points! And you certainly didn't hide the part that Lifehacker has in this... well done.

It does come down to managing these outlets, and I would say that is nothing new. Its just that the information today comes in different formats and through different channels. Effective people are able to manage this based on their needs and responsibilities.

rhman

I liked the idea proposed by Gina, the whole "get things done without blocking everything out". I had a roommate at school who tried to shut out the world when he worked and found himself going crazy and unable to work after awhile.

I read this blog because I find that some of the tips on it do work for me. I've tried some that haven't, but mostly I'm pretty good about figuring that out before I download the software or start a DIY project.

Most people just want to find the magic solution that will just let them glide through life. They then see people who are willing to work out the solutions on their own, not wait for someone to tell them the best way to do it, and get angry that they haven't been let in on the secret. (Sorry about the garbled antecedents, couldn't figure out how else to write that.)

My desk may be messy, but I know how I work and how I get things done. You have to know yourself very well to be able to use "timesaving" effectively.

ark86

I think that communication today- via email, social networks, internet, etc., is far more efficient and effective than ever before.

Like a previous poster mentioned- people's aversion to technology and its use in their life is usually fear of change. It's like when someone tells you how bad TV is for people. I argue the opposite, in that between DVR, online episodes, better content, better production, more choices, TV is better than ever. People typically can't control their behaviors when it comes to TV, so they blame the TV for spending 7 hours in front of it without moving.

With all that said though, and despite being a proponent of technology and efficient communication. I can't wait to turn off the blackberry on Friday afternoon. I look forward t vacations where I can't get a cell signal. If I go out on a Saturday night, I may leave my phone at home. At the end of the day, I still value personal interaction much higher than any social network, chat room, or twitter. Its the personal interaction that truly creates a lifelong bond and friendship. Our challenge now is to try and find the balance between the two.

ayeroof

@onesix18: I'm confused. By revisiting your priorities, doesn't that make you more efficient and productive?

chareverie

I'm as unimpressed with multitaskers as ever. Give me the obsessive 21 year old Linus Torvalds hacking up Linux in his room over people checking off b.s. tasks nobody will care about in 10 minutes let alone 10 years any day.

BobDope

The time consumed by reading and discussing Productivity Studies costs the US economy more than $330 billion a year.

imajoebob

While I agree with most of what was said, I just spent the last 10 mins reading this article instead of working.

Gann

Good article, I'm glad there is an "Opinion" tag now.

Despite what everyone says about email killing productivity, we could go back to before we had email at all and then see how productive anyone is.

Dom

What if you're online, watching TV AND getting ripped simultaneously?

Is that a triple waste of productivity or uber-multitasking?

Marla Collins

Productivity is a crock anyhow. There are a nubmer of ways to "increase productivity," and they all boil down to:

1. Raise prices without increases the wages you pay your workers.
2. Reduce the number of workers you have to pay and maintain the same prices (e.g., make them work harder).
3. Reduce wages without lowering prices.

These all assume constant material costs, of course, but the principles remain the same: "Productivity" is a bit of mathematical sleight of hand.

Here's how to measure what you're *really* producing:
Did you accomplish what you *needed* to accomplish today? Yes? Then you are productive.

Deadhacker

Awesome article. It really rings true to me. I've seen plenty of otherwise-reasonable people act more like haters than listeners when it comes to a conversation about productivity and the web/email.

It's very valuable to see how a productivity guru applies her fine BS detector - it helps teach us how to filter out the wheat from the chaff ourselves. Thanks Gina, pedagogue par excellence!

kiwinerdgrrl

Thank you for saying this. This is by far the best post I have ever read on Lifehacker. Well done.

BrandonJ

@Deadhacker: That also is the formula for killing you market. When people are too busy and too underpaid, they stop buying. This is what is happening in America today.

Gina, well thought out piece. I think the real issue is not information over- or underload, it's the inability to manage large amounts of information without a great struggle. GTD has it right that you can't keep it all in your head, but proposes a system that does not work well for most people (takes longer to maintain than it saves). The obvious answer to this is to use a software organizer that allows you to roll your own knowledge management system, and I've been on a quest to find or create one for myself for nearly a decade.

Lotus Notes was a good early contender. PIMs like EasyNoter came close. Mind mapping software like Freemind also contained useful elements. Recently, I've fallen in love with FusionDesk, which unfortunately appears to have been abandoned by its developer (no replies even to offers of free assistance). There are webapps aplenty, each containing bits and pieces of needed functionality, but just like with GTD, you can easily spend more time managing and switching between the array of tools than you can save by using them.

I'm currently rolling with a minimalist mashup of desktop apps, but I'm still searching for the holy grail of PIMdom: a really high quality, well thought out, and user friendly personal information management application that organizes, manages, and monitors all of the tools we use in the information age: email, projects, calendars, priorities, web resources, local and network files, can provide a single interface for interacting with a variety of common documents, etc. If I could code, I would write one myself, but there's a preliminary software specification for those who can... ;o)

Keter

"$700 billion a year lost after a gazillion gained leaves us in the black in the end."

I about choked on my coffee when I read that line. I'm not adding anything really insightful to say in this comment, but think Gina deserves applause for a line well delivered. =)

theNolan

I say take these studies with a grain of salt. But LMAO @ "email kills concentration more than smoking pot does." Funniest thing i read in the last hour.

designerpcexpert

@ficcionista: "If i can't do them right there, then i use my own memory to do them later. Sure, i do forget somethings sometimes, but then again, who doesn't?"

I'll tell you who doesn't forget the things they need to do: The people who write everything down.

AndyFromTucson

Great points. Most studies are done by someone trying to sell something on some level or another and so the results are colored by their conflict of interest. Even most articles in the media are affected by some kind of conflict of interest or another (if only that the author doesn't want to burn his contacts by reporting the real dirt). One of the greatest things about the web and blogs is that people get a chance to poke holes in biased studies and articles, either in the comments or on their own web pages.

AndyFromTucson

Saying that email monitoring wastes $700 billion in productivity is like the recording industry saying that music downloads are costing them $700 billion in lost sales.

What this fails to take into account is that people are not able to concnetrate on work for 8 hours straight, nor should they be expected to. Regular breaks are a necessity to stop the mind from getting bored and wandering. Sure, I check my email regularily, but only when my workload isn't really occupying my full attention, and I need a break. When I have something urgent to do, then I only check my email when I get a chance.

I heard a case study years ago about dock workers. It was something along the lines that when management introduced a 10 minute break per hour, for every hour of the shift, then the throughput of shipping containers for the day actually increased. It sounds counter-intuitive, but perhaps people having ways of taking their mind off work for 5 minutes such a Facebook, email, etc is beneficial than them going for an aimless wander through the office to find someone to chat to.

dawyndham

Great post, Gina, and good advice. Enhancing productivity was started, formally, in the 1900's by F. W. Taylor for the manual laborer in factories in the U.S. and the world. His work brought about huge increases in factory output - just in time for the next two world wars. His work allowed unskilled people to do lots of things, taking away the crafstmanlike work of the 1800's. Today, we are just beginning to understand measuring productivity of the knowledge worker - those who do many different types of usually unscripted tasks during the day like IT people, engineers, graphic artist, programmers, etc. The 21st century may be the century that we get this together like F.W. Taylor did last century. Until then, there is no discrete base of knowledge for this concept of productivity with this group. I agree with Gina's comments and one should take what one reads with a grain of salt, evaluating the commercial aspects of the messages. One other aspect, team-based work is also an avenue of productivity enhancement for the knowledge worker not approached by most diatribes in productivity studies.

rosemm

Bravo Gina. Recently, on July 15 2008, an inaugural meeting of Information Overload Research Group took place. IORG is dedicated to "reducing information overload, a problem which diminishes the productivity and quality of life of knowledge workers worldwide".

It is uncritically accepted that so called information overload ruins our life and seems to be a contagious malady. To save ourselves we should compartmentalize our time and attention by following favorite time and information management techniques. However, since technology produces information abundantly, certainly we should better use technologies that help us with filtering, spotlighting and contextualizing information that we are interested in.

Wealth of information is an asset not an impediment.

Too much effort and attention is given to studying the so called negative impact of information wealth and not enough attention is spend on technologies capable to intelligently mine the information wealth. I fully agree with Gina that productivity is a very personal issue and with a bit of ingenuity each of us can take advantage of information wealth.

Henry_Lewkowicz

Amen. I've always thought those "[insert communication technology here]" studies completely failed to account for how much productivity is gained by their use. Sure, a portion of the time workers spend on email is truly wasted, but another portion is spent accomplishing 45 things in one day instead of the 12 they would accomplish WITHOUT email.

I designed a complex product, hired developers to build it, oversaw development and have now have a releasable product 6 months later. Without all those online "time-wasting tools", the same process would have taken two years.

Nick_Desbarats

Part of the mystery is that these surveys, like Lifehacker itself, tend to target specific groups of people, I think. I wonder what a survey of Lifehacker readers would show in terms of (admittedly dubious) productivity metrics?

It is nice to see some introspectiveness among Lifehacker writers, recognizing the role they have to play. I think ark86 said it well, that you pick and choose which software you'll download, or which DIY project to tackle.

Now, to avoid the self-criticism, Lifehacker can realize it's not setting out to solve this 'terrible problem', but simply provide a number of options that can, possibly, MAYBE, add productivity.

lawt

I agree with just about everything... my two cents... unless a REAL UNIVERSAL email etiquette comes along. Most email will be a waste of time ...

Communication via email and the likes is soo easy that we send anything that crosses our mind without a second thought.

This noise would conventionnaly be filtered by the "It's too much effort/time plus he/she could have something to say to me and waste my time" part of our brain.

This doesn't make email evil or bad... we just have to be more aware of the impact of our communications.

I'm no communication expert but that's that

piege

I read this blog, and use many things on it. Honestly, I hate to side with the demonizers, because I frequently catch myself saying, this isn't vital to my work. In part I am reading this because it's a hobby, and because I enjoy this. Sometimes it does yield a positive effect on output ect, but mostly, it kills time. However, since no human being can work X amount of hours straight, particularly with the internet on hand, it's not a complete waste of time. These comments and article like this just prove the point that none of this is necessary. Everyone is doing this technically "unrequired task."

As if this post was not long enough, I'll drop one more analogy. Do workers have to eat lunch? You could say no, they can survive and work, however, we can all agree that lunch is vital. Even if you don't much care for it, you need the nutrition long term. So lifehacker is like lunch. You don't need it, not at all. People did business well with car phones and brick mobiles. Or even before that with pen and paper. However, lifehacker has an overall positive effect on people who use it.

And for the record "productivity boosting" is a nice euphemism for "playing with tech."

EditorinChief

Wow, nice to see Gina showing some teeth around here...and I'm in complete agreement. What really drives me nuts are those "productivity cost" studies (like the e-mail one) that get reaaaallly stupid, like the billions of dollars lost to people sneezing.

As someone else said, those all rely on the assumption that people are doing something that makes money every second of the day. Blah.

And I also agree that so-called information overload is crap (then again, I think this e-mail overload is crap too...it's not the systems fault if people don't know how to use it responsibly. No sympathy for people who need to declare e-mail bankruptcy.)

shatteredmindofbob

Have a look at my blog devoted to the subject of information overload and how to deal with it.

We will be launching a new Web 2.0 platform for alert services and reminders that will make it easier to deal with IO.

Nicolas123

@dawyndham:

I agree wholeheartedly with you. As I stated in my previous post, things like briefly checking the news on the internet act as 'mini-breaks', which enhance your overall concentration, at least, thats what I would say.

Its been shown that after 20 minutes of concentrated work, said concentration starts to suffer.

unruled

I was a Luddite for years, but I must say that on the subject of "information overload," you are dead-on. I can't tell you how much time and money (not to mention stress) I've saved by doing the bulk of my shopping online. The Internet has freed me from the chaos that was the Christmas shopping season. Now I just pop a cold one, sit back, and order online. I can purchase, have them gift-wrapped, and shipped without leaving the comfort of my home. I also pay about 95% of my bills this way (I refuse to pay bills online where they charge a fee to do so). I do have one observation though: It seems like now that almost everyone has a cell phone, pager, voicemail, or answering machine, it's actually harder to get in touch with someone than it was before.

MightyJoe36

I think like most things it's a mix. You can certainly lose a huge number of hours just following one idea another on the net, especially if there is no underlying theme or limit to your time. I did like the point though that almost anything you're doing with info on the net is probably doing more for you than sitting around watching TV, with the stipulation that it depend somewhat on what what the hell you're looking at on the net. And I do like the notion that the voluminous, varied nature of the data out there can be creatively stimulating, but I still think it has to be managed to do so and wake up to find that you've spent way more time out there than would be ideal After all the car still needs to be cleaned (with three bags), and the dishes still need to be done.

There is more info out there than any of us will ever come close to being able to consume or use. I do think there is a lot of legitimacy to the idea that some skill or strategy is needed to navigate all of it and sift out what suits our purpose.

I also agree that all manner of hucksters will be there to help you deal with the information crisis, at the same time Gina was courageous to admit that she benefits from chicken little rattling on about the information overload. But much like being paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you-just because hucksters are benefitting doesn't mean there is not a kernal of truth to the crisis message de jour. Seems like a synthesis of the two opposing views might be where the truth lies here.

HamiltonG

Hmpph - why are people so definitive about this stuff. THere are no one size fits all answers. There are times when email is a distraction, time suck and full of crap. There are other times (far more of them) when it is a godsend. I think everyone has to find their own way to work with technologies. The people who are bad at email IMHO are also bad at writing and phone calls and most other forms of communicating. For me email just makes it easier to ignore them.

And I adjust my approach and attitude to everybody I deal with based on how they react. Some people get a terse five words. Others a voluble and careful ten paragrpahs.

THe obsession with GTD is also puzzling to me. I now have essentially infinite storage, plenty of bandwidth and processing power. So I keep all emails that have ANY relevance, no matter how small. I just delete the completely useless ones. I have no trouble finding what I need when I need it. My paper filing system is a series of boxes. Again, I can find things faster than most everyone I know - and I almost always actually HAVE it - instead of having binned it.

Yes - I know that means my challenge becomes dealing with and managing a lot of STUFF. Well, I work better that way, so it is right for me. But it probably isn't right for you.

owenl1998

Gina, in a way I think what Gates said is true - we're still in the information 'underload' stage.

I mean that usually people sooner or later settle with as much information as they can handle or perhaps just a bit more. Sure this still needs managing but it's not really overload.

In fact, think of all this information that is out there and which is relevant to us but we never acknowledge its existence - let alone tap its potential. And this is true both for internet-savvy and not-internet-savvy people (but especially for the latter group).

It is in this sense of not 'processing' (whatever that might mean) all the relevant information that we're quite at the opposite extreme of overload.

dimitris

"$700 billion a year lost after a gazillion gained leaves us in the black in the end."

This is exactly what I think of every time I read one of these studies! Thanks, Gina, for an insightful post and I hope to see more like it.

saramariani

I don't think it is just the ding that causes the complete $700 billion, but the distraction and then the person leaving their task to do something else. Most likely wasting time.

I completely agree with the personal productivity. Find what works best for you and learn to keep improving it and making it more efficient.

Keeping the inbox clean not only is productive, but it will also raise spirits. A full inbox can make you feel tired and it also makes it difficult to assess the amount of work in front of you. Not to mention it allows you to waste time with unimportant e-mails.

simplis

This post inspired me to write on what may be past information overload: [terrainnova.org]

dimitris

@drewls: "Oh my! This is a dangerous road you're going down here. If you start questioning these 'studies', then you're going to realize that different ones come out all the time contradicting each other."

Don't forget they'll also show that the subject of the study causes cancer in lab mice.
---------
Seriously, the studies that get hyped just remind me of why I stopped watching the news on TV. There's just too much sensationalism rather than intelligent analysis. How can you get analysis when you have to fit everything into a sound bite?

I'll never forget the day I saw a committee meeting on C-SPAN where the witness asked for more time to explain his position. He didn't ask the members of the committee, he asked the director covering the meeting! Shouldn't accurate testimony in a public hearing take priority over media concerns?

mbear

I agree we cant take an extreme position.

The problem is we are overloaded with bad information and cant find the information we need.

Basically we are overloaded with underloaded information.

e.g. we dont need 100 different gtd apps- we only need one that works for us. but now we have 100 to go through to find the one we need.

Summy