This, as many projects, started as myself trying to solve my own problem: Where did my day go? Why don’t I get more done? How long can I work in a state of flow without before an interruption pops out?
After frenetic activity, you look back at your day and it doesn’t look like you accomplished much. I also felt I was being interrupted too much for my own good,… and sometimes, the sources of those interruptions was myself, checking mail, browsing websites ‘to rest’ (and not coming back to my main task for over 20 minutes when It was supposed to be a 3 minutes rest), or doing some other unrelated tasks. I really wanted to know how often I’m interrupted, and there wasn’t a tool out there that felt right (which is difficult considering the trillions of productivity-enhancing programs being pitched out there!). So I just designed one myself.
Have a look, go to the interruptron page, and tell me what you think….
11 Responses to “Behold… the interruptron!”
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December 8th, 2007 at 5:02 am
A question from an user:
How does you realising your length and number of interruptions help you to increase your productivity?
Answer: To minimize, you first need to capture and measure those interruptions.
If they are auto-interruptions, you can do something to remove them (e.g., do not play music while working if you find that some are music related). If they are external (i.e., your job mates knocking or calling) you can try to get most of your work done the time of day where you are interrupted the least. Or you can change locations (work from home).
You can look at which tasks get the most interruptions too.
If you recognize you’re interrupting yourself because the task isn’t pleasant, and you stop this behavior your productivity has to increase.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
How do you change from one task to the next? Your log shows you did various tasks, through the day, subject to interruptions, but I can’t figure out how you change from e.g. “job 1″ to “job 2″
Regards
December 28th, 2007 at 4:56 am
Just write the new job and press enter. No need to press any button.
December 29th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Just write the new job and press enter. No need to press any button.
Thanks but I feel I have missed something fundamental.
I start “Job 1″. Just like you say, enter will get Job 1 to feature in the drop down list and on the log.
I allow 60 mins for Job 1. I finish it with 12 mins to go. I stop Job 1 by pausing. But I cannot figure out how to tell the system that Job 1 is now concluded.
Yes, I can enter “Job 2″ and it will join the other jobs on the list. But I cannot start the timer for Job 2 at 60 mins. And if I restart the yellow ticker, all that’s happened on the log is that the previous 48 mins run up for Job 1 disappear from the log (you get to see this happen momentarily), then all that time is attributed to Job 2. Job 2 substitutes for Job 1.
December 29th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
I wrote:
Yes, I can enter “Job 2″ and it will join the other jobs on the list.
I meant that
[No Task]
Task
Job 1
Job 2
etc
can all show on the drop down list you get below the yellow ticker. But the log attributes all the time to the most recent job you enter
January 1st, 2008 at 7:41 am
You don’t need to pause to switch jobs.
I think I understand what your misconception might be; you seem to think that the interruptron is job-oriented. It’s not. (Many other software in this category is, so I would have thought the same too).
The drop list will contain the jobs of the current session only (i.e., since you last fired the interruptron). No easy way to remember all jobs you entered.
Is that what you meant?
January 6th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I just downloaded and started playing around with interrupton, it’s awesome. However, I do see where it could help me more if I could list applications that are work oriented. If I get distracted in configuring/tweaking my linux, I would be using various configuration tools. I could list all these tools, but it would be more helpful to me if I could list just the applications that I should be getting my attention. Also, if don’t have any activity on my work application for some time, I could be having a conversation with the guy in the next cube, how about an option to turn the stop work timer if there is no activity for some interval of time? I do like where I can go back to the work time with a hot key even though I’m using IE, sometimes it is work oriented.
erol
February 4th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I started using this tool and liked it pretty much… until I realized that every time the timer is set to “On”, it uses 70% of my CPU!
Consequently I had to interrupt my work to try to fix this and then write you
Let me know if you find a way to change that… Thanks!
February 4th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
8.- Yes. There’s an easy fix. Just go to options > automation and uncheck the box “automatically stop work timer and chalk it up as interruption [...]“. (Yes, I have noted the mispelling).
The problem is that the current method of checking which application has focus is CPU intensive. We tried different ones, and are still investigating on this issue.
March 27th, 2008 at 11:15 am
This looks great! Is there a version for mac osx? Will there be one soon?
May 1st, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Love the idea of interruptron and used it yesterday.One basic question, though, I see that the program can be
closed (and thus removed from the screen), but once i close it, i can’t find it again. So the only way I can figure to reopen it is to reload the application.
Is there some way to close it (or hide it) and not have to redownload the application and lose my previous day’s data. Thanks for putting together a great program.