I’m not really the type to say “I told you so,” but I just saw the results of a productivity study that supports one of my favorite tips: get rid of visual alerts on your computer to minimize distraction. The study, conducted at the University of Cardiff, got a mention on Web Worker Daily earlier this week.
According to researchers, even a five-second interruption increased the time it took the study participants to complete the rest of their assigned tasks. That means all those Growl notifications, new email popups, instant message windows and bouncing dock icons are subtly undermining your productivity, whether you notice or not.
That’s because it takes time for the brain to task-switch and remember what you were working on before you checked email or answered an IM. Maybe not a LOT of time, granted, but it definitely adds up. “We might find ourselves needing a few moments to re-gather our thoughts, and remember what it was that we were about to do before we switched our attention to the interrupting on-screen notification,” said Helen Hodgetts, who authored the study.
The study did suggest an alternative to visual alerts, though: sounds. When we hear alert sounds, we don’t …
[At this point, I received a Growl notification from Twitter, and was distracted from writing this article.]
… as I was saying, we don’t feel the need to respond immediately to sounds, the way we do with visual stimuli. A simple auditory ping that tells you something’s happening doesn’t demand the same level of involvement as seeing the subject line of a new email pop up on your screen.
Alert sounds can certainly be annoying, though, so I recommend browsing the sound sets on Adium Xtras and picking out something subtle that you can live with. (These are designed for the excellent Mac chat client Adium, but they can be downloaded and plugged into other apps as needed.)
How do you have your alerts set up? Let us know how you cope with distractions, in the comments.
Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He writes about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also follow him on Twitter and at his blog.
Photo Credit — mukluk
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Totally agree, as we continue to move to this “real-time” social world, cutting down distractions will be hard to do but necessary for productivity.
Visual alerts are really distracting, in fact, some give it no attention at all. The alternative of sound alert I find interesting. I will remember this findings.
I didn’t notice this fact before!!
[btw, a popup message came from the bar below and distracted me while I was writing this comment!]
I will disable all notifications except for my GMail notifier!