The Mindjet Blog

There’s an interesting article in today’s NY Times Magazine ("Meet the Life Hackers" by Clive Thompson) about "interruption scientists" who examine the design of computer interfaces in order to funnel the user most effectively through distractive tasks. In the era of "Multitasking" where operating systems have turned into hubs for every conceivable office task, "office denizens now stare at computer screens of mind-boggling complexity, as they juggle messages, text documents, PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets and Web browsers all at once." Thompson states: "Information is no longer a scarce resource - attention is." And: "In the modern office we are all fighter pilots."

Today’s office worker exhibits a troubling level of attention-deficit-disorder: According to a study by UC Irvine, each employee spends only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted and whisked off to do something else. What’s more, each 11-minute project is itself "fragmented into even shorter three-minute tasks, like answering e-mail messages, reading a Web page or working on a spreadsheet. And each time a worker is distracted from a task, it takes, on average, 25 minutes to return to that task." Thompson writes: "To perform an office job today, it seems, your attention must skip like a stone across water all day long, touching down only periodically."

But the interruptions are not just bad - they satisfy a very human need: to be seen as important, to be recognized, to be constantly connected to others. They break the isolation of workers who immerse themselves in one task for hours. "It makes us feel alive," Thompson cites Linda Stone, a software executive who researches "interruptions" for Microsoft: "It’s what makes us feel important. We just want to connect, connect, connect. But what happens when you take that to the extreme? You get overconnected."

Thompson points out that the current design of computers does not resolve this phenomenon very creatively. Some experts argue "as long as computers deliver information primarily through a monitor, they have an inherent bottleneck - forcing us to squeeze the ocean of our lives through a thin straw." Indeed, researchers found that size matters in reducing distraction: More visual real estate, that is, bigger screens, would help users to focus on one task while not losing sight of other tasks even as they are being exposed to permanent distractions. Current operating systems, however, try to squeeze all information and simultaneous tasks into various little windows on one single screen - with the result that users are more and more struggling to connect and make sense of all that information and communicative events. Amidst the juggernaut of multi-connectivity, they are having a hard time to set priorities, keep focus, and distinguish "important interruptions" from "unimportant interruptions."

While changes in the computer design seem to resemble a futuristic vision that would require an entirely new paradigm of human-machine interaction, a rather pragmatic approach would be the redesign of the user interface within the constraints of existing hardware. Interestingly, the article refers to visualization as one potential cure: If the real estate itself does not change, then let’s organize the available real estate more visually. Hinting at David Allen’s "Getting Things Done" approach, Thompson argues that if a task becomes visible in front of a user and the hierarchy of information becomes visible, the user will more likely recognize it. 

MindManager is built on this very concept: Manage a multitude of tasks and interruptions by visual cues and topic alerts. Make information meaningful by seeing the relationships. See the big picture and grasp all the details as well. MindManager is arguably positioned in a moderate spot in the continuum from linear to non-linear: It is still on the grounds of the prevalent Windows interface paradigm but enables you to overcome it at the same time if you want.

Full article

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