n'interruption

Occasionally I chance upon a little studylet or article which discusses the various forms of information overload available to the modern person in an office situation and how emails or telephone calls or texts or (creak) faxes are more of a burden than an handy agent of information exchange as they're constantly breaking our flows of thoughts and interrupting us. Emails are often pilloried as the prime culprits as they're probably the most numerous and dealing with them is a task in itself. I'd probably pick the telephone as the most interruptive thing just because it lacks the deal-with-it-when-it-suits delayability of the email and makes a nasty harsh unignorable noise when it is activated. Perhaps because I once had to answer the phone as the main task of my job I dislike having to do so now that I've escaped the world of the forced call.

Actual real people coming over to the desk might actually be slightly worse as they tend to launch straight into their requirements triggering the process of recalling exactly what they're on about (and what might have gone wrong with it or require fixing or what exactly it might have to do with me) and are generally harder to fend off as they obviously don't care about interrupting busy-ness having come over and interrupted in the first place. Some people obviously take pride in not sending an email to someone twenty feet away but being able to maintain a constant flow of thought is sometimes a nice thing.

I've tried various methods of making notes of particularly interesting things I manage to think of (usually outside of work by now but sometimes they have no choice but to occur during work) but nothing really beats actually writing down what you think you think at the time; this seems to best preserve the thread of the way the thing was being though of whereas simply jotting down a couple of random words often reminds me of what I was thinking without being sufficiently descriptive to enable me to find the thread again.

Of course, in the future* we'll all have little clip-on mind-state monitors which will remember what we were thinking and will allow us to take proper mental notes when we try and make mental notes of things. There are probably many things which won't deserve second thoughts upon reflection after some time to not think of them but at least the stuff we always mean to remember but usually end up forgetting will be preserved.

***

In keeping with the attempt to post the picture which relates to the warblings I have not posted these people despite their stylishness. They might have made it in but for a lack of understanding on the part of the universe (or at least this one) to arrange itself serendipitously; the antique/junk shop outside which they stand calls itself "Now & Then". They were outside the "Then" window. Opposite the "Now" window but unfortunately on entirely the wrong side of the road was this bloke. One day...

*You know. That place where all the flying cars and electric tables went after they appeared on Tomorrow's World.