I find I am forever suggesting to my clients that they need to create time to think. A time with no distractions or interruptions, particularly of the electronic kind. Sitting in a meeting watching people check their emails on a portable device, listening to the ‘beep’ as email arrives on the desktop, feeling the vibrate of any incoming call, can be very frustrating and distracting.
I recall reading an article which suggested that once distracted from the task at hand it can take 10-15 minutes to get to the same level of focus – and often this is about when we get distracted again.
My hypothesis is that we do our best thinking when we eliminate distractions, and that this needs to be in large chunks of time – with a minimum of at least one hour. I further hypothesise that eliminating distractions will lead to an increase in productivity.
To test this hypothesis I intend to set aside 100 days during 2010 where I will not check my email, go online, listen to voicemail message, or play my ipod. A day means 24 hours from midnight, and will be during the working week. An emergency, such as family illness, will override this.
In other words, I have decided to take a dose of my own medicine, and take the advice I give my clients. Rather than being ‘always on’, take some time to be ‘often off.’ Create some white space where you can hear yourself think.
This is the origins of The White Space Project, and I invite you to join my by registering on this site, with a note about your commitment to creating White Space. It could be a morning a week, a day a month, and hour a day. But think about stretching yourself.
Please also contribute to the Forum about what you learn along the way. What works or doesn’t work. What is the impact on your life – professionally and privately.
But will The White Space Project undermine my business? Will I miss opportunities, or alienate people, because I don’t respond on the same day to emails or phone calls.
Will it enhance my business because I do better thinking, and am more productive during the White Space days?
This website is fundamentally a tool for me to journal this experience, and learn from your experience.
Let’s give ourselves space to think!
A great idea. As a freelancer, I think I also need to apply a variation in my home life. That is, make time where I don’t allow anything business to interrupt. It’s too eas as a freelancer to work 24/7.