This article, "A Day Without Distraction" a.k.a. Anal Retentive Time Management, is an experiment rather than a collection of preachings about how to be more productive, and not get distracted from work. After reading a handful of other articles on this site (" Master Plan" and "Control Your Check-In Addiction") I decided it was actually the most insightful in their current string of "Life-Strategy" articles, considering that it is written from the perspective of the writer, Cal Newport, applying a set of rules to his workday to see if they actually help or hinder his productivity (hint: it's both).
The fact that right off the bat, New port manages to botch his appointment time and makes up for it with a series of 'small tasks', is kind of encouraging he makes the most of his time. It does seem like the distance he needs to get from place to place is quite minimal, so not too much time is 'squandered' that way. But it's also funny that his communications are extremely limited by the committed time.
I don't consider checking email or other messages as 'wasted' time, but considering the amount of time they take to sort through, read, and respond to, it's definitely a time suck. I think there's a better way of permitting yourself time to deal with electronic communications, ie, give yourself 5 or ten minutes out of every 2 hours. I don't feel my 'efficiency' is lost in the transition from work to distraction, because a lot of the communication involves my work as well.
Funny, unrelated thing I noticed - 4 of 5 of the articles are illustrated by this Oscar Ramos Orozco dude, and not that his work is bad, but all the articles start to look the same after a while, literally. I dont know if that's a practical decision on the part of the parent company, Behance, but it's kind of monotonous from a consumer perspective.
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