Managing Communication - Part 1 of How I Get Things Done

This post was prompted by another blog post by my friends over at Mystic Coders. In short, it discusses the topic of communication overload. This post is simply a re-edit of a comment I made there. I will base a series of posts off of the general subject of how I Get Things Done (GTD) of which this post will be the first.

I have been keeping this thought inside for quite sometime, only ever preaching to choir when a certain style of communication annoys me. Here is that thought for the rest of the world to consume...

EMAIL IS NOT INSTANT AND SYNCHRONOUS! STOP USING IT AS SUCH!!

We live in a world where friends, family, and coworkers are all constantly sending each other emails and somehow the protocol was established that replies and threads must be replied to and read in an almost instantaneous fashion. The coworker bunch is the worst offender of this. My favorite example of this is from a former operations director who would send a (non-critical) email to you and within five minutes later he would be at your desk to make sure you read it. That, my friends, is a double-whammy to The Flow. Unfortunately, everyone seems to have forgotten that the final 80% of characters in the word "email" spells "mail" - a communication mechanism that we all find acceptable to check once a day and let pile up when we are out of town.

Of course, given the world of constant interaction that we find ourselves in now, it would be pretty implausible to just trivialize email the way I just did by comparing it to snail mail. It wouldn't work practically in some organizations. Given the fact that I work remotely, I really would have a hard time eschewing it.

Of course, email isn't the only distraction that we face. I personally engage and benefit from using 4 other electronic communication mechanisms:

• IRC
• IM
• Skype
• Twitter

If one is not careful in their usage of any electronic communication protocol, it can become a timesuck just like, if not bigger than, the barrage of email piling up in your inbox. Of course there's always those interactions you must and will have with people on the phone and in person as well.

So... here's what I do to circumvent this. For the part of my days that I've partitioned to Get Things Done (aka work), I put myself on a timing system. I'm on a Macintosh and I use the simple but functional Apimac Timer application. I set the timer for 48 minutes and kick it off and focus solely on items in my GTD list - nothing else exists in the world if I can help it. I ignore all non-urgent electronic communication (anything mentioned above and email) and I only communicate with others on purpose if its relevant for the task at hand that I'm working on. What is considered urgent or not is often for me to decide on the fly. Roughly, if it's direct coworker who is pinging me via a synchronous communication protocol (IM/IRC/Skype) or in person or on the phone about something important to my tasks or their tasks and I'm not in The Flow, I'll pause to answer them; otherwise... they must wait. I do not even look at my email window at all unless a high priority email came. After the timer finishes and the 48 minutes is up, I reset it to 12 minutes, and allow myself to check email, irc, hit the bathroom, read a random article from my rss feed, and so on. After the 12 minutes is up, I'm back to focus mode again for 48 more minutes... Rinse, and repeat.

This 4:1 ratio allocation of one hour blocks of time has the triple effect of allowing me to:

• synchronously communicate and email enough when it is warranted
• concentrate in almost 50 minute blocks of time - long enough to establish and keep a flow on short tasks
• take enough mental breaks from tasks during the day so as not to be drained by 2PM
  

I only ever void this schedule if the work I'm doing is either super critical, if I'm really in the zone and it doesn't seem like a need to take a short mental breather, or if I've scheduled an event previously (a meeting, or phone appointment, for instance).

To help me stick to this schedule the I do the following things with my email and email client which delivers the communication that is often the nosiest and responsible for the biggest chunks of time that could potentially be wasted

• Turn off pop-up windows and noises that occur when ANY new messages arrive
• Create a filter rule that automatically gives a low priority status to any message where my name, or one of my distribution lists/groups are not in the TO: line. Low priority emails are read at the beginning of the day on the next day.
• Keep my own email messages under 3 sentences, unless the piece of communication really deserves more. Unless an email message will contain a moderate amount of technical detail, it must be typed in 3 sentences and under 5 minutes. Otherwise, it probably ought to be communicated through some other means.
• Bounce the dock icon on my Mac if there is a high priority email - I allow myself to at least skim those at any time to determine if there is an action item I need to perform right away. This form of notification is subtle enough to not distract my eyes until I've come to an intermediate stopping point in whatever it is I'm doing (e.g. finishing writing a statement in a piece of code).
• Strive to keep the Inbox at 0 unread messages... I never want to have the feeling that I'm behind or missing anything.
  

What I've found in applying these techniques to email is that the signal/noise ratio of the email I check constantly is very acceptable. I probably only read about 10 during the normal workflow of each day, as I only permit myself to read/write them once per hour. Ignoring emails you are CC'ed on until the next day also has the side effect of making you resist the urge to peanut gallery on threads you were merely CC'ed on - thus preventing (or at least keeping in check) the negative feedback loop of everyone trying to shove their opinion and thoughts in to a gigantic email thread.

With the other communication protocols, I just play it by ear. I don't want to eliminate folks from being able to find me, at will, on synchronous communication protocols unless I really need the focus. I do nothing fancy with them outside of turning off growl and setting my skype to DND status (which prevents me from seeing when others call).

The end result of all of this is that I now probably spend about 1 hour a day on communication during my work time instead of the 3 hours or so I estimated I did before - and that's an extra 2 hours a day one can devote to doing the real work that one needs to do to stay productive and valuable.

What are some things that you do to help facilitate getting in The Flow and keeping your communication avenues available but without getting in your way?