Creative Reaction

Even though it’s focused on software development, Signal vs. Noise is my new favorite blog. This archived post, Getting Real: The alone time zone, articulates the importance of creating without interruptions, and offers some very practical tips to allow creatives to have blocks of time in order to experience creative reaction.

“Set up a rule at work: make half of the day alone time. From 10am-2pm, no one can talk to one another (except during lunch). Or make the first half of the day alone. Or the last half. But make sure to make the alone time zone contiguous — interruptions kill productivity.”

“A good formula may be 2 hours in the morning where you can communicate, then the next 4 hours alone, and then the last 2 where you can communicate again. No communication means no IMs, phone calls, no meetings. Emails can work as long as they aren’t expected to be answered during the alone time.”

Managers - you need to be on board if this is to happen!