Departments
DepartmentsI don't know about you, but I have trouble shifting gears. When I'm working hard, I have trouble taking time off. When I finally take time off, I have trouble getting started again. My problem even extends to the kinds of tasks I undertake. I love to write software and text that sells, but while I'm busy writing it I don't want to think about commercial matters. I don't even want the phone to ring. Similarly, I can be a manager or a salesman for days on end just don't ask me to write much code or prose in the bargain. It takes me a day or two to switch modes fully.
After running a software company for a decade, I finally decided that the multiplexing involved wasn't worth the wear and tear on my psyche. I know now that I'm a writer/programmer first and a businessman a long way second. Fortunately for me, I had the opportunity to sell the company and shift my working conditions. Not everyone enjoys the same freedom.
My bet is that everyone in our intellectually demanding profession has similar problems. Your time constant may vary, but Ill bet that every reader of this magazine suffers some loss of annual productivity to a drumbeat of ill-timed interruptions. Few of us can afford the luxury of focusing indefinitely on one project at a time, but we all need stretches of uninterrupted concentration, and some sense of control over the inevitable interrupts. We also need a bit of slack to get caught up on reading, to think an occasional new thought, or just to recharge our psychic batteries.
I spend a certain number of days a year inside assorted companies, and I can always spot quickly the ones with problems meeting deadlines. They pull programmers out of meetings, or provide them with noisy work environments, or jerk them from project to project with little or no recovery time. They begrudge any vacation time throughout the year then force everyone to take it on short notice at years end. (The worst ones do all of the above, and then some.)
If this sounds like a familiar problem, don't wait for your boss to solve it for you. You are responsible for maximizing your own productivity, and happiness, to whatever extent you can. You can buy a copy or two of deMarco and Listers Peopleware and give them to your management. You can pin this page up outside your cubicle. But don't get your hopes up too high that the hint will sink home. And remember, even those of us who are self employed face the same struggle on different turf.
P.J. Plauger
Senior Editor