I’ve been researching information on email productivity for the past couple of days. Lately, I’ve found myself repeatedly checking my email while busy working on a document, or waking up in the middle of the night checking my Blackberry. In fact, I’ve developed a bad habit of checking my email on my Blackberry when I’m half asleep in the middle of the night. The next morning I have a hard time remembering if the events actually happened, or having completely forgotten about the email.

John Ratey, an associate professor specializing in attention programs at Harvard Medical School, coined the term “Pseudo-A.D.D”. Meaning “not genuine, but having the appearance of Attention Deficit Disorder”, this term was created to describe the phenomenon of computer users being easily distracted, and thus, unproductive. This field of study is becoming more commonly researched by computer scientists and psychologists, “assessing how technology affects attention, span, creativity, and focus”. Some universities now have “Human-Computer Interaction labs”.

Katie Hafner, author of the article “You There, at the Computer: Pay Attention” describes the prevalence of distractions stating that “in the era of email, instant messaging, Googling, e-commerce and iTunes, potential distractions while seated at a computer are not only ever-present but very enticing…Today, there is a universe of diversions to buy, hear, watch and forward, which makes focusing on a task all the more challenging”.

Of course, one of the most common and persistent sources of distraction on the computer is email. “Email can make us more busy than productive”. It can interrupt “key cognitive flow movements”, often breaking productivity. David E. Meyer, a psychology professor from the University of Michigan, found that multitaskers or people who switch back and forth between multiple tasks on the computer, such as checking/exchanging email and writing a document, “may spend 50 percent more time on those tasks than if they work on them separately, completing one before starting the other”. His explanation is that multitasking offers a “guise of productivity”, giving the feeling of great accomplishment, while actually unproductive.

Some business people and consumers feel that they will fall behind if disconnected from technology and “are compulsively drawn to the constant stimulation provided by incoming data”, making it more difficult to focus on one activity at a period of time. In the article, “The Lure of Data: Is It Addictive“, written by Matt Richtel, he refers to this condition as “O.C.D.” or online compulsive disorder.

Upon the identification of these related phenomenons, discussion has started to build questioning whether the new gadgets being created are positively correlated with consumers developing these conditions. Jeff Hallock, the Sr. Director for consumer products at Sprint PCS, disagrees with the notion that gadgets serve as distraction, stating, “We’re enhancing people’s lives so they can have more control of the flurry of activity that’s seemingly coming in”. Sprint PCS and other mobile carriers have been been selling consumers, what Richtel calls, the “the manna of multitasking”, phones with cameras, email, internet, instant messaging, and music download capabilities.

So do these devices help us to be more efficient and productive or cause us to suffer from pseudo-A.D.D? I think each person has to figure out the right balance that works best for them. For now, I’ll try and keep my email reading in bed to a minimum.

Eric’s last post was about the rules of the competitive aspects of Productivity Suite, but I wanted to highlight some of the great conversations that are going on in the blog portion of the site. There’s been a lot of great content Productivity Suite this week. Here are some highlights:

Push your Gmail to your iPhone - Eric posts on a hack he found to make his iPhone sync with his email in real time - so he never misses an email.

Fitness At Work: Starting Simple - Ronan posts about starting small and incorporating fitness into your work day.

Long Term Goals and Anime - I (Caitlin) post about some cool things I’ve seen and read lately around setting long term goals, and recap Dan Pink’s new book (written in Manga style) “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You Will Ever Need.”

Check out the content and let us know what you think!

The Productivity Suite is an application that was developed within our labs here at RD2. Productivity as it applies in our lives and in our work life has become more and more important, and the Productivity Suite is our attempt at finding a better way for people to become productive in their lives. The application centers around user-submitted blog posts, and also adds a collaborative element where users can submit kudos or offenses of their fellow teammates to encourage productive behavior. If you want to know more read our launch post.

When we started floating ideas around the office for the Productivity Suite there were quite a few people who were hesitant. As the application came together we realized that without a rule set, or some guiding principle that was easy to understand, the experience would be crippled by apprehension. As there will be many people submitting blog posts, and sending each other kudos and offenses, we wanted to be sure that these things were done in the most constructive way possible.

We decided to create a few simple rules that would allow people to get a better understanding of not just the functionality, but how the application was envisioned to be used. The content and atmosphere was key for this application to function, so by adding some helpful content we hope users will feel more comfortable using the site. These rules are located on the Productivity Suite site and are accompanied by helpful screencasts. I thought I should post them here for those interested.

If you have any suggestions for other parts of the site you feel need more explanation, let me know and I will create additional screencasts. Thanks, and enjoy!

Rules of the Productivity Suite:

1. Help spread knowledge
Help spread knowledge by making informative and interesting blog posts that deal with productivity

2. Support your team
Support your team by recognizing their efforts and good habits by giving them compliments (Kudos)

3. Discourage bad habits
Don’t let your friends and peers at work get away with bad habits. Help remind them of their mistakes by submitting an offense

4. Be balanced
If you think you can get away with only submitting offenses, beware. Helping people learn from their mistakes and complimenting others on their hard work is even more important. Keep a balance between offenses and kudos or your points might mysteriously reduce.

5. Don’t be a jerk
It’s a game but don’t abuse the system. Before you post a snarky article, write a sarcastic comment or give someone a ridiculous kudo / offense, ask yourself… is this good for the company?

This afternoon we are launching what we’ve been referring to as “Productivity Suite” - a software product (currently in beta) from our new company called RD2 Labs. Productivity Suite is a productivity application that is unlike anything that has been done before.

There is always a push to be more productive. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in the nonfarm business sector:

• During the first quarter of 2008, productivity (work output per employee per hour) rose 2.6% since the last quarter
• From the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008, output per hour increased 3.3% - the largest four-quarter change in 4 years

Productivity is taking a front seat in business, in technology, and in our busy lives.

Right now the new product is code named “Productivity Suite,” but a new name is going to be assigned soon. The big idea is to ignite awareness in team environments around productivity and spur teams to hold each other to a new level of accountability that is fun and exciting, but also that has very serious consequences on productivity in the work place. This system has a rewards/points system where people can earn points for positive actions in the workplace related to various categories of work productivity. There is a blog at the core of the software that only focuses on content that fits the context of categories such as: meeting productivity, time management, tools for productivity, and so on… The blog sets the guidelines and feeds content dynamically to the application to help employees learn how to be more effective. The goal is to get more out of an 8 hour work day than they have been doing in a 12 hour day…. and to go home and have time to relax.

We all know that cultural change generally happens slowly, but as we have been testing this internally we have seen a significant turn around in the way people think about productivity. This change has happened fast because the change is happening from within the organization - we designed a system in which team members can file an offense or offer a kudo to fellow employees. At first this seems a bit shocking, in concept, but the interface and usability of the application makes it competitive and we have found that the general office culture is quickly shifting to a more productive place. More than ever, our team has been focusing on conducting meetings that start on time, have agendas, focus on objectives, and end when they are supposed to end.

This product may not be for everyone, but it has quickly made an affect on our team and their eagerness to learn how to be more effective. People get points for adding great content to the system that fits the context. They also get dinged if they file too many offenses…. File too many in a row and lose points yourself. This system encourages users to post a balance of positive reinforcement and constructive criticism.

Also, we are building a set of reports (our next beta release) that will help us to understand who’s strong at what category and who needs help in which categories. We will offer training to those who need the help. And, we are tying our reports to utilization and realization in the company so that we can offer real data on potential impacts of this on our bottom line.

We’re really excited about all the hard work the team has done on this project. Check out the RD2 Productivity Suite at http://productivity.rd2inc.com!

I have yet to make it through a week without hearing a, “Hey! Check this out!” from Ronan. He’s always experimenting with new web-based applications and tools so normally I (politely and tactfully) pretend I didn’t hear him.

Last week, however, he had included some very nicely annotated screenshots in an email and I asked what kind of screen capture tool he had used. Turns out there’s a hot little beta called Skitch, currently invite-only, from the crew at plasq.

This app allows you to quickly and easily grab screenshots, camera shots, or import existing images/PDFs and annotate them quickly and easily with a small but well-chosen toolset - I love the arrows. Resizing and cropping is a breeze, although I’d love to see them allow user-entered dimensions rather than having to click and drag. The final image can be saved to your Skitch user account (think Flickr minus most of the features), dragged into any application, or saved out in a variety of formats including PDF, TIF, and SVG.

This last week I’ve used Skitch in quite a few ways:

• During a competitive analysis presentation, I was able to quickly grab screenshots, annotate them with arrows, and drag the shots directly into Keynote without having to save each one out individually (behind the scenes Skitch actually does save them temporarily as *.pict files, so there’s no quality issue when moving from Keynote to Powerpoint or vice versa).
• When responding with comments to an image, Skitch opened the PDF file and let me comment directly on it. The end result was a clear and easy-understandable response that took a fraction of the time it would have taken me via email.
• Omnigraffle Pro and Skitch make a great combination - wireframes saved out in SVG or PICT vector format can be opened directly in Skitch, which I find to be much faster for resizing, writing callouts, and general notes on the original images.

What I can’t describe in this post is how unbelievably slick Skitch is in every interaction. From the tool tips to resizing and anti-aliasing, each task feels responsive and tight. This is one application that has already made its way into my box o’ tricks and will stay there well after the beta period.

• Kinkless | Productive Creativity
  kinkless - desktop organization - general organizational tips
  (tags: productivity)