I finally went out and bought Peopleware, as suggested by a number of people in my journal. I'm about to hand chapters 10 and 11 over to my manager to digest for a while...
... for anyone involved in engineering, design, development, writing, or like tasks, flow is a must. These are high momentum tasks. It's only when you're in flow that the work goes well. Unfortunately, you can't turn on flow like a switch. It takes a slow descent into the subject, requiring 15 mintes or more of concentration before the state is locked in. During this immersion period, you are particularly sensitive to noise and interruption... Each time you're interrupted, you require an additional immsersion period to get back into flow. During this immersion, you're not really doing work."
"When electronic mail was first proposed, most of us thought that the great value of it would be the saving in paper. That turns out to be trivial, however, compared to the saving in reimmersion time. The big difference between a phone call and an electronic mail message is that the phone interrupts and the e-mail does not... We have to learn to ask, Does this news or question deserve an interrupt? Can I continue to get work done while I wait for an answer? Does this message need immediate recognition?"
what caused me to spend $35 on a management book? my manager instisted I install AIM this morning.
Re:PeopleWare, updated
pdcawley on 2003-01-13T20:46:44
Seconded. Agile Software Development is a cracking book.
Also, remember where your traffic is going. See http://gaim-encryption.sourceforge.net/
