Are you always on?

Working smarter, not harder has always been an aspiration, although I'm not always successful in making it a reality. I was immediately drawn, therefore, to read Anne Fisher's article "Be smarter at work, slack off"

Scientists have only recently begun to realize that people may do their best thinking when they are not concentrating on work at all

... immediately resonated with me. That's one of reasons I always have my Olympus Digital Voice Recorder handy. I have a one hour commute to work by car, and that time is generally my best, and most productive, thinking time. The fruits of that thinking get recorded as they happen, and get thrown into my GTD collection process when I'm at my computer.

Anne goes on to suggest that in a knowledge work culture the companies that succeed might be those that facilitate the time for workers to think strategically. Google is already ahead of the curve on this issue with it's 20% time.

The CNN article also touches on another of my favourite themes: the always on, always connected, interruption driven, culture. One of my best lifehacks of recent times was to end the tyranny of email notification.

The "time cost" of refocusing your attention may be only a few seconds with each switch, but the researchers found that, over time, it reduced people's total efficiency by 20% to 40%.

And that's one of the ways I kick ass when compared to your average crackberry addict.

Tags: GTD, Lifehacks, Productivity