Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Raymond Zeitler]

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Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions?  I really need to quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day.  Then I'd press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a special term.
Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
What do you suggest?


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Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Raymond Zeitler <zeitra@yahoo.com> writes:

> Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions?  I really need to quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
>
> I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day.  Then I'd press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a special term.
>
> Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
>
> What do you suggest?

Seems to me the danger of interruptions is not how much time they take
up, but how much time it takes you to recover from them, and get back to
work. Much harder to clock!

Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Michael Welle]

Hello,

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> Raymond Zeitler <zeitra@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions? I really need to
>> quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
>>
>> I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my
>> todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day. Then I'd
>> press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a
>> special term.
>>
>> Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
>>
>> What do you suggest?
>
> Seems to me the danger of interruptions is not how much time they take
> up, but how much time it takes you to recover from them, and get back to
> work. Much harder to clock!
yepp. Maybe add a 'braininess' factor to every task. Tasks, that need a
lot of thinking, let's say hacking, have a higher 'braininess' than, for
instance, sharpening pencils. Depending on the 'braininess' of the
interrupted task add another 15 or 30 minutes to the interruption
account. 

Regards
hmw

Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Tim Cross]

I'm not sure there is any *good* way to track interruptions. As
pointed out by others, interruptions are not equal and the actual length
of the interruption is not necessarily a good reflection of the actual
impact to your productivity.

I've found two things which have helped me. One has helped to reduce the
interruptions and the other has provided some (minimal) help when I've
been questions on why a task has taken longer to complete than
estimated.

The first has been to use a type of pomodoro technique. Essentially, I
break my work up into blocks of time where I will not answer the phone,
email or anyone coming to my desk. I do run a timer which ticks down and
/allow/ interruptions in breaks between 'pomodoros'. The timer is really
useful as when someone comes to interrupt me, I can say, come back in x
minutes. It takes some training of your work colleagues, but they will
eventually respect your request (and being able to give them a definite
'come back in x minutes' helps).

The second thing I do is if an interruption cannot be avoided, I do
check out of my current task and only check back in once the
interruption has finished. While this doesn't tell you how much
productivity was actually lost by the interruption, you can at least do
some analysis of the clock times and show how often and for how long you
were interrupted - or at least working on that task was interrupted.

Tim

Michael Welle writes:

> Hello,
>
> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> Raymond Zeitler <zeitra@yahoo.com> writes:
>>
>>> Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions? I really need to
>>> quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
>>>
>>> I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my
>>> todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day. Then I'd
>>> press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a
>>> special term.
>>>
>>> Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
>>>
>>> What do you suggest?
>>
>> Seems to me the danger of interruptions is not how much time they take
>> up, but how much time it takes you to recover from them, and get back to
>> work. Much harder to clock!
> yepp. Maybe add a 'braininess' factor to every task. Tasks, that need a
> lot of thinking, let's say hacking, have a higher 'braininess' than, for
> instance, sharpening pencils. Depending on the 'braininess' of the
> interrupted task add another 15 or 30 minutes to the interruption
> account. 
>
> Regards
> hmw


-- 
Tim Cross

Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Raymond Zeitler]

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Yes, I agree that it's difficult to assess productivity based solely on the time I'd spend clocked into Taskerruptions.
I came across one other question in this list about interruptions where the poster was interested in following the pomodoro technique.  (There was no reply.)  But that technique seems geared toward addressing "internal" interruptions, like when I decide that the windows need washing when I need to do the taxes.  (This after about 45 seconds of reading that website.)  My interruptions are almost always what you addressed in your last paragraph; they're from people more important than me.  I almost never can say, "I'll get back to you."  Although I have taken to roping off my cubicle with a stern "Do Not Disturb" sign on occasion.
Just clocking them would be a great start.  Maybe I'll figure out that I can say, "I'll get back to you" in some cases.
- Ray

      From: Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>
 To: Michael Welle <mwe012008@gmx.net> 
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
 Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2017 5:45 AM
 Subject: Re: [O] Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question
   

I'm not sure there is any *good* way to track interruptions. As
pointed out by others, interruptions are not equal and the actual length
of the interruption is not necessarily a good reflection of the actual
impact to your productivity.

I've found two things which have helped me. One has helped to reduce the
interruptions and the other has provided some (minimal) help when I've
been questions on why a task has taken longer to complete than
estimated.

The first has been to use a type of pomodoro technique. Essentially, I
break my work up into blocks of time where I will not answer the phone,
email or anyone coming to my desk. I do run a timer which ticks down and
/allow/ interruptions in breaks between 'pomodoros'. The timer is really
useful as when someone comes to interrupt me, I can say, come back in x
minutes. It takes some training of your work colleagues, but they will
eventually respect your request (and being able to give them a definite
'come back in x minutes' helps).

The second thing I do is if an interruption cannot be avoided, I do
check out of my current task and only check back in once the
interruption has finished. While this doesn't tell you how much
productivity was actually lost by the interruption, you can at least do
some analysis of the clock times and show how often and for how long you
were interrupted - or at least working on that task was interrupted.

Tim

Michael Welle writes:

> Hello,
>
> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> Raymond Zeitler <zeitra@yahoo.com> writes:
>>
>>> Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions? I really need to
>>> quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
>>>
>>> I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my
>>> todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day. Then I'd
>>> press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a
>>> special term.
>>>
>>> Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
>>>
>>> What do you suggest?
>>
>> Seems to me the danger of interruptions is not how much time they take
>> up, but how much time it takes you to recover from them, and get back to
>> work. Much harder to clock!
> yepp. Maybe add a 'braininess' factor to every task. Tasks, that need a
> lot of thinking, let's say hacking, have a higher 'braininess' than, for
> instance, sharpening pencils. Depending on the 'braininess' of the
> interrupted task add another 15 or 30 minutes to the interruption
> account. 
>
> Regards
> hmw


-- 
Tim Cross



   

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Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Tim Cross]

One of the problems with the many recommendations for productivity
techniques is that they can never really take account of the endless
number of differences in workflows, working environments and personal
preferences. For me, I found the GTD approach was geared more towards
the procrastination problem (washing windows rather than doing taxes)
and Pomodoro was more about managing interruptions you have been
conditioned to respond to (phone, email) or from colleagues/bosses.

My own journey has resulted in taking some ideas from both
approaches. It is still and work in progress and probably always will
be.

It sounds like your on the same road I was on. The one warning I would
make is that unless you can also do something about managing those
interruptions, just tracking them will likely only make matters
worse. It is even more depressing being able to measure the amount of
lost productivity or interruptions if at the end of the day you cannot
do anything about them. This is where I found the Pomodoro approach
better than GTD. I found GTD was really about organising your work so
that you were more efficient. The pomodoro approach on the other hand
has some concept about managing your environment. It recognises there
will always be people in your environment that are important enough to
be able to interrupt you at any time. However, it also highlights that
many of your interruptions are not from this group and provides one
technique to help you set expectations and agreements within your work
environment which helps everyone.

There is a pomodoro mode for org, but I preferred to use an external
program with a big clear timer. Initially, I used an old monitor and put
the timer on it and set the monitor so that anyone who came to my desk
could see it. When people interrupted me, I would say "Sorry, I'm in the
middle of something important, can you come back in x minutes (x =
coutdown on monitor) or send me an IM/Email and I will look at it in x
minutes.  While it took some time, people soon understood and would even
come to my desk, look at the monitor and then leave without saying
anything, coming back x minutes later instead. 

After me doing this for a while, a number of other staff started to do a
similar thing and now there is greater acceptance of the idea that you
don't just walk up and interrupt someone. We actually had some cultural
change where people now send an IM instead of walking and directly
interrupting someone. More importantly, they don't expect an instant
response to the IM or email.  

There is a relatively inexpensive book (paper, ebook and audio)
available from Pragmatic Pub which is relatively short and has some good
ideas. I would recommend looking at that and try out the org-pomodoro
package for a while to get a feel for it. It probably won't be quite
right, but may give you some ideas.  


regards,

Tim

Raymond Zeitler writes:

> Yes, I agree that it's difficult to assess productivity based solely on the time I'd spend clocked into Taskerruptions.
> I came across one other question in this list about interruptions where the poster was interested in following the pomodoro technique. (There was no reply.) But that technique seems geared toward addressing "internal" interruptions, like when I decide that the windows need washing when I need to do the taxes. (This after about 45 seconds of reading that website.) My interruptions are almost always what you addressed in your last paragraph; they're from people more important than me. I almost never can say, "I'll get back to you." Although I have taken to roping off my cubicle with a stern "Do Not Disturb" sign on occasion.
> Just clocking them would be a great start.Maybe I'll figure out that I can say, "I'll get back to you" in some cases.
> - Ray
>
>       From: Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>
>  To: Michael Welle <mwe012008@gmx.net> 
> Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
>  Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2017 5:45 AM
>  Subject: Re: [O] Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question
>    
>
> I'm not sure there is any *good* way to track interruptions. As
> pointed out by others, interruptions are not equal and the actual length
> of the interruption is not necessarily a good reflection of the actual
> impact to your productivity.
>
> I've found two things which have helped me. One has helped to reduce the
> interruptions and the other has provided some (minimal) help when I've
> been questions on why a task has taken longer to complete than
> estimated.
>
> The first has been to use a type of pomodoro technique. Essentially, I
> break my work up into blocks of time where I will not answer the phone,
> email or anyone coming to my desk. I do run a timer which ticks down and
> /allow/ interruptions in breaks between 'pomodoros'. The timer is really
> useful as when someone comes to interrupt me, I can say, come back in x
> minutes. It takes some training of your work colleagues, but they will
> eventually respect your request (and being able to give them a definite
> 'come back in x minutes' helps).
>
> The second thing I do is if an interruption cannot be avoided, I do
> check out of my current task and only check back in once the
> interruption has finished. While this doesn't tell you how much
> productivity was actually lost by the interruption, you can at least do
> some analysis of the clock times and show how often and for how long you
> were interrupted - or at least working on that task was interrupted.
>
> Tim
>
> Michael Welle writes:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>>
>>> Raymond Zeitler <zeitra@yahoo.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions? I really need to
>>>> quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
>>>>
>>>> I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my
>>>> todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day. Then I'd
>>>> press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a
>>>> special term.
>>>>
>>>> Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
>>>>
>>>> What do you suggest?
>>>
>>> Seems to me the danger of interruptions is not how much time they take
>>> up, but how much time it takes you to recover from them, and get back to
>>> work. Much harder to clock!
>> yepp. Maybe add a 'braininess' factor to every task. Tasks, that need a
>> lot of thinking, let's say hacking, have a higher 'braininess' than, for
>> instance, sharpening pencils. Depending on the 'braininess' of the
>> interrupted task add another 15 or 30 minutes to the interruption
>> account. 
>>
>> Regards
>> hmw


-- 
Tim Cross

Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Bob Newell]

Solutions to the interruption problem are definitely individual. In my
case I simply tracked frequency of interruptions. I got from that the
bottom line that I should not try to work at home--- a conclusion that I
probably needed no software support to justify.

When I switched to working at libraries and coffee shops, the issue
became one of focus, and the pomodoro method solved that problem for
me after a little fine-tuning of work and break intervals.

I use one of the non-org pomodoro packages also, but it's all according
to how you organize your work.

I only think tracking length of interruptions adds value if you bill
clients in time increments, and even in that case clocking out of the
billable task is arguably more important than clocking in to the
interruption task.

If you want to know how much time is lost to interruptions, etc., just
subtract your logged productive time from the length of your workday, to
get the same depressing result as if you had logged all interruptions.

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i
* Via Gnus/BBDB/Org/Emacs/Linux *

Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Raymond Zeitler]

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Yes I see your point.  Maybe it's too ambitious to determine productivity.  But knowing how much time is spent on the interruption (taskerruption) would be a good start.
- Ray

      From: Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
 To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org 
 Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2017 10:48 PM
 Subject: Re: [O] Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question
   
Raymond Zeitler <zeitra@yahoo.com> writes:

> Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions?  I really need to quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
>
> I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day.  Then I'd press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a special term.
>
> Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
>
> What do you suggest?

Seems to me the danger of interruptions is not how much time they take
up, but how much time it takes you to recover from them, and get back to
work. Much harder to clock!




   

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Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Christophe Schockaert]

Raymond Zeitler writes:

> Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions? I really need to quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
> I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day. Then I'd press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a special term.
> Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
> What do you suggest?
I do.

I have set up capture templates for phone calls, mail read/write, and
general journal log. The former two, I clock-in automatically, the
latter one, manually, in case I just want to log something in the course
of my current activity.

I use tags to identify phone calls and mails, so I could sum up their
time, comparing to the whole. I don't do it though. Maybe that's why I
didn't tag my "general log journal". But to achieve what you want,
that's what I would do.

When I handle a phone call or mail or general interruption, I usually
keep the clock running until I managed all actions related to it
(e.g. summarize the phone call, and scheduling any actions resulting
from it), so rather than the interruption itself, I keep track of the
whole time to handle it. It doesn't take into account the context
switching however, as pointed out by Eric.

As for the time to trig the capture... For mails, there are obviously no
problems. I am eager to have my mu4e setup running to link directly to
the content at the same time. For phone calls, the bell is ringing up to
3 times, so it's ok. It's when somebody comes in that it's a bit tricky
to handle, because people expect your attention. I usually focus on the
need to take notes to have the opportunity to start my template, where I
just write write down a summary of what is said during the talking.


HTH,
Regards,

Christophe

-- 
--------------->  https://www.citadels.earth
Once it's perfectly aimed, the flying arrow goes straight to its target.
Thus, don't worry when things go right.
There will be enough time to worry about if they go wrong.
Then, it's time to fire a new arrow towards another direction.
Don't sink.  Adapt yourself !  The archer has to shoot accurately and quickly.
[Words of Erenthar, the bowman ranger] <---------------<<<<

Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Raymond Zeitler]

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Yes, I like your setup with org-capture.  I think I can overcome the problem of invoking the capture when someone pops in to complain that email is down, for example.  I would use either AutoHotKey (I'm on Windows) or bind a function key in Emacs to a taskerruption function for F2F issues.  One or two keypresses (ALT-TAB F12), under those circumstances, would not be considered rude in my environment.
I used Planner for several years.  It had (has) a time-warp function so that the user could create content retroactively.  If all else fails, I could schedule the taskerruption retroactively using a similar function in org.
- Ray

      From: Christophe Schockaert <R3vLibre@citadels.eu>
 To: Raymond Zeitler <zeitra@yahoo.com> 
Cc: "emacs-orgmode@gnu.org" <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>
 Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2017 5:56 AM
 Subject: Re: [O] Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question
   

Raymond Zeitler writes:

> Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions? I really need to quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
> I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day. Then I'd press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a special term.
> Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
> What do you suggest?
I do.

I have set up capture templates for phone calls, mail read/write, and
general journal log. The former two, I clock-in automatically, the
latter one, manually, in case I just want to log something in the course
of my current activity.

I use tags to identify phone calls and mails, so I could sum up their
time, comparing to the whole. I don't do it though. Maybe that's why I
didn't tag my "general log journal". But to achieve what you want,
that's what I would do.

When I handle a phone call or mail or general interruption, I usually
keep the clock running until I managed all actions related to it
(e.g. summarize the phone call, and scheduling any actions resulting
from it), so rather than the interruption itself, I keep track of the
whole time to handle it. It doesn't take into account the context
switching however, as pointed out by Eric.

As for the time to trig the capture... For mails, there are obviously no
problems. I am eager to have my mu4e setup running to link directly to
the content at the same time. For phone calls, the bell is ringing up to
3 times, so it's ok. It's when somebody comes in that it's a bit tricky
to handle, because people expect your attention. I usually focus on the
need to take notes to have the opportunity to start my template, where I
just write write down a summary of what is said during the talking.


HTH,
Regards,

Christophe   

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Re: Tracking Interruptions -- Work Flow Question

[Michal Politowski]

On Sun, 13 Aug 2017 02:02:00 +0000, Raymond Zeitler wrote:
> Does anyone schedule and "org-clock" interruptions?  I really need to quantify how much of a drain they are to my productivity.
> I thought I'd include a generic "** TODO Interruption" in my todo.org (or an inter.org file) and schedule it every day.  Then I'd press "I" every time I get interrupted and perhaps tag it with a special term.
> Or I suppose I could use a capture template just for interruptions.
> What do you suggest?

Haven't yet personally tried anything as elaborate as this, but http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html
describes a very complete personal workflow with, among other things, tracking interruptions via
capture templates.

-- 
Michał Politowski