Can making email into a game make you more productive, encourage you to develop better habits and make email more fun? That’s the idea behind Baydin’s The Email Game, which applies gameplay mechanics to the process of working through your inbox.

After authorizing the app with your Gmail or Google Apps account, you’re presented with the top email in your inbox and have 90 seconds to decide what to do with it: Archive, reply, label or “boomerang” (which archives the email, but will bring it back into your email automatically at an allotted time). Each positive action taken adds points to your score and moves you to the next email. Take more than the allotted 90 seconds, or “skip” the email without deciding to take action on it, and you’ll lose points.

If you decide to reply to a message, you’re given three minutes to compose your reply. Again, if you delay, you’ll lose points, although you can always click the “add time” button if you have to compose a particularly long email. Note: by default, The Email Game adds a link to itself in your email signature, which I found a bit annoying; you can remove it in the app’s settings page.

The Email Game isn’t the first app to try to turn email into a game; we’ve previously written about 0boxer, for example, which also awards points for completing email actions, although The Email Game is the first app I’ve seen that adds time limits to discourage procrastination. Unlike 0boxer and InboxScore, however, The Email Game doesn’t have any social features, so you can’t compete with friends using an online leaderboard, and it also doesn’t seem to be able to keep track of your scores between sessions; it’s probably not something that you’d want to use on an ongoing basis. However, it’s certainly a fun way to motivate yourself to power quickly through your inbox in order to achieve “inbox zero.”

The “gamification of work” is something that that’s attracting the attention of a few companies recently. Rypple, for example, is using gaming mechanics to to increase engagement with its employee feedback app. While it remains to be seen as to whether gaming mechanics really can improve worker engagement and productivity, as Jessica noted in a recent post, game enthusiasts do tend to display the kind of traits — being bottom-line oriented, tolerant of diversity, comfortable with constant change, happy to learn, and intensely interested in innovation — that should also be advantageous in the workplace.

The free version of The Email Game works only with Gmail and Google Apps accounts. An enterprise edition is available that works with Outlook/Exchange or IMAP accounts and costs a rather pricey $20/seat/month.

Remember when collaborating was fun?

The news that Google’s staff bonuses now depend on the success of its new +1 social rank tool — and Mathew’s observation that “you can’t threaten people into being social” — brings to the fore an important but often unacknowledged issue surrounding collaborative business: While businesses focus on choosing tools, prescribing acceptable network policies and measuring ROI, the easiest way to get staff to collaborate is, well, to make it fun.

One organization I worked with last year used an internal social network that was literally devoid of any humor or personality whatsoever. Try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to use it, and I wasn’t the only one. Who wants to “engage” when there’s nothing but a constructed corporate persona to engage with?

If you want staff to collaborate productively with one another, your suppliers, peers or customers, the simplest way is to make it fun.

You may think that’s unrealistic; a non-essential element in the cut-and-thrust of today’s heady business competition. But the fact remains that it’s the easiest way to get staff to work together.

What makes collaboration fun?

Human Contact

Collaboration is fun because we do it with others. Online collaboration helps us very efficiently avoid the tyranny of distance, which is equally great for making disparate teams feel closer, and for allowing us to learn from people we’ll never get a chance to meet.

We all know the kick that comes from engaging with someone we admire — albeit at a distance — over Twitter or Facebook. That thrill is echoed every day in good collaborative exchanges within teams.

Personalities

Personalities can make or break the collaborative effort. Evolving team member disagreements and friendships all have their impacts on the collaborative fun factor.

Establish your collaborative space as a supportive, open platform on which individuals’ unique aspects are welcome, and your staff will likely have more fun there.

A Shared Goal or Direction

Being part of something bigger than the individual is a key motivator for many collaborators. Most of us want to belong, and belonging involves sharing. Shared experience—especially the overcoming of collective challenges, and the achievement of common goals—strengthens team bonds and supports future collaborative efforts.

Think of the people you love collaborating with on work projects. They’re probably people who share your passion for the work, and who can communicate that enthusiasm equally well through in-person or online exchanges.

Learning, Contribution and Recognition

For most professionals, a key personal motivation for collaboration is the opportunities it provides to learn from peers, contribute to the collaborative effort, and be recognized for the good work we do by people we admire.

That cycle of mutual respect, admiration and knowledge exchange is self-perpetuating. Valuable, rich collaborative relationships usually continue even when team members change employers, and no longer have access to in-house collaborative systems.

The Payoff

If you’re thinking, “that’s fine and all, but it sure sounds like a lot of fun,” you’re right. But remember: more fun means stronger staff engagement, more effective collaboration, and greater productivity.

If your organization is one of those that’s still worried about the potential for staff to “spend all their time on social networks,” it’s way past time to join the age of social business. Engaging with staff about the networks they enjoy, and considering the ways they could be used to enrich workplace collaboration might be a good first step towards making your organization more collaborative and effective.

Teams that don’t collaborate well should assess their operation on the basis of the elements mentioned here. Certain tools may help you overcome specific collaborative issues, but the astute team leader will consider each possible solution in light of its potential to enhance the collaborative fun factor—knowing that more fun will likely lead to a greater ROI.

Does your organization support fun within its collaborative approach?

Image courtesy tam_oliver.

Over the years, there have been numerous articles musing on what the office of the future would look like, but how have those past predictions matched up to reality today?

Back in 1975, BusinessWeek published “an in-depth analysis of how word processing will reshape the corporate office.” In the article, industry experts were divided over whether they would be able “to call up documents” from their files on-screen and connect electronic terminals to each other or if this vision of the future was, in fact, “scare talk.” One of the biggest concerns raised was how word processing would change the traditional secretary-executive relationship.

I think it’s safe to say that the predictions in the article put forward by George E. Pake , then head of Xerox Corp.’s Palo Alto Research Center, were largely correct. According to Pake, in 1995, there would be a TV-display terminal with a keyboard sitting at his desk and he’d be “able to call up documents from my files on the screen, or by pressing a button … I can get my mail or any messages. I don’t know how much hard copy [printed paper] I’ll want in this world.”

I have it on good authority from Jonathan Howell, Huddle’s CTO, that in the 1990s, everything was networked, all internal communication was done via email on a mainframe and desktop printers (with “desktop” referring to ubiquity rather than size) were commonplace. However, Jonathan was working for IBM in the 90s; what was it like for the rest of the workforce? You could indeed access your files with a click of a button on your computer. Networked desktop PCs were becoming increasingly widespread in offices worldwide, and in August 1995, Microsoft launched its much-anticipated Windows 95. The World Wide Web started to take shape, and Yahoo became one of the largest directories for web content. In short, advances in technology during the 1990s resulted in the “revolution in the office” that Pake predicted. Laptop computers were also becoming hot sellers, so the idea of a mobile workforce, while still a long way off, was starting to develop.

However, Pake’s vision of a world without “hard copy” remains a fantasy. In spite of the increasing popularity of email and the web, the rise of devices such as the iPad and enterprise content management tools, such as Huddle and SharePoint, the paperless office is still out of reach. The desktop printers that became a familiar sight in the office in the ’90s continue to be the worker’s trusty companion. According to the WWF, the average U.S. office worker goes through 10,000 sheets of copy paper per year. People still want to have physical documentation. Whether it’s business records, receipts or utility bills, people continue to feel they need to store paperwork in a safe, physical place for future reference. To drive widespread adoption of new technologies, a cultural shift and change in habits needs to take place. Just as the introduction of word processing and automation to the 1990s office changed the traditional secretary-executive relationship (or “office wife” bond), enterprise content management and collaboration technologies are disrupting the way people work today. Transforming working practices takes time.

In 1987, little more than 10 years after BusinessWeek’s predictions article was published, Apple Computer created a video envisioning how people would use technology to work in the 21st century:

The touchscreen “Knowledge Navigator” tablet device shown in the video could easily pass for an early prototype of Apple’s iPad, while the University Research Network accessed for information on deforestation in the Amazon rainforest looks suspiciously like the web. We are now accustomed to seeing touchscreen devices — according to market research firm iSuppli, worldwide production of touchscreen modules for use in computers is set to hit 117.9 million units in 2014 — but in 1987, mainstream adoption of such devices was still years away.

Another application shown is video conferencing: The professor is seen happily conversing with his colleague on-screen. Now, of course, video conferencing is part of most workers’ everyday lives, whether they are based at home or in an office: another hit for Apple’s vision of the future. While I doubt avatars with bow ties fielding calls and managing diaries will take off (unless Clippy 2.0 is overdue?), but virtual customer service assistants are now a familiar sight: Jenn at Alaska Airlines and Lucy at O2, for example. It may be a while before speech recognition is as seamless as that shown in the video; it is still a familiar (albeit often frustrating) technology.

The paperless office and a diary-managing avatar may not be a reality just yet, but many of the predictions made decades ago aren’t too far off the mark. However, there were some visions of the office of the future that just didn’t come to fruition, such as the short-lived Microsoft at Work (MAW). On June 9, 1993, Bill Gates launched MAW, which was supposed to connect common business machinery, like fax machines and photocopiers, with a communications protocol allowing control and status information to be shared with computers running Windows. It never got off the ground, and by 1995, it had disappeared from view.

Andy McLoughlin, co-founder and EVP Strategy at Huddle, can be reached on Twitter @Bandrew.

“What are your New Year’s resolutions?” As 2011 approached, I heard this question frequently. I usually responded with a cryptic answer about how I always have a list of goals, but don’t necessarily call them resolutions. The word itself usually makes people either hopeful or cynical. I tend to belong to the latter group. With the low success rates of New Year’s resolutions, who can blame us?

Last year, the New York Times published an article (login required) citing research finding that about 80 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions break them by Valentine’s Day. A study from 2007 supports this, saying only twelve percent of people achieve their New Year’s goals.

Perhaps this means that before we list our goals for 2011, we should take a closer look at our own attitudes towards goal-setting. What misconceptions do we have, and what can we do to remedy them?

Myth #1: Tell everyone your goals so that you’re publicly accountable.

In theory, publicizing your goals with friends, or on your blog or Facebook profile, might force you to achieve them, so as not to be seen as someone who’s all talk and no action. But according to a 2009 study by goal-setting researcher Peter Gollwitzer (PDF), this isn’t always true. Most people state their behavioral goals in very general terms (“My goal is to eat healthier”) that gives the premature impression we’ve already done them.

Here’s what works instead: implementation intentions. Gollwitzer defines them (PDF) as a plan spelling out when, where, and how you intend to accomplish a goal. In fact, another study (PDF) shows that implementation intentions work so well that they can help you accomplish your goals despite the presence of distracting thoughts and emotions.

This doesn’t mean it’s easy after you establish a plan. You’ll need to check and update your plan often. It’s also important to start working on your goal as soon as possible. The more time your goal remains inactive after you’ve stated your intentions, the less likely you are to accomplish it.

Myth #2: Reward yourself for your progress.

Some people suggest that to keep yourself focused and motivated in your pursuit of a goal, you need to have rewards for accomplishments. For example, if you successfully stick to your schedule for a week, you’ll give yourself the license to go out with friends during the weekend. While there’s nothing wrong with rewards per se, you need to be careful about how you think of them.

Research shows that for large goals (e.g.. becoming healthier) that have many supporting subgoals (e.g.. sticking to a diet, exercising regularly), whenever you successfully achieve a subgoal, you should reward your personal commitment to the larger goal rather than to  your progress. Rewarding yourself for achieving one subgoal may lead you to ignore the other subgoals, because you’ll view them as substitutes. If you reward your commitment to the larger goal, the subgoals will seem interrelated, and you’ll be more driven to pursue each of them.

Myth #3: Focus on yearly goals.

By definition, New Year’s resolutions are goals that must be achieved within a year. While this tradition can work for some goals, it may not be effective to use such a long time-frame. First, even if we think we know ourselves well, we tend to be poor predictors of what we’ll need or feel in the future. Our perspectives, situations, and desires may differ greatly within a year. Second, most research (PDF) backs up the idea that setting short-term goals is more effective than looking at the big picture. This means that even if you have a list of yearly goals, it’s better to break them down into smaller monthly or weekly subgoals.

Given these goal-setting myths, we should be more attentive to how we set our goals, what works in practice, and what only seems effective in theory. By looking at our goal-setting behavior together with the goals themselves, we’ll be more likely to accomplish more this year.

Do you set goals during the New Year? Which tactics improve your success rate?

Photo by sxc.hu user lazydog

I spent today ‘helping’ my son put together a new filing cabinet in my office. Once he’d left, I transferred all my filing and made beautiful, label-maker labels and arranged them in lovely diagonal lines. Yes, I’m a stationery and organization nerd. I love the feeling of going into the new year organized and ready. I have new calendars, new notebooks – it’s like going back to school. But, I can tell you, that on Monday afternoon, my office will be the usual ‘in the middle of 18 things’ mess. My to-do list will look like it’s had mice with inky feet running all over it and there will be post-it notes in random places.

I am no more organized than anyone else. What I’ve learnt though, is that it’s ok to start well and then let it slide. It’s to be expected. The secret is to make the time between starting shorter. You can start the new year with a clean and organized desk and slide till April. Or, every night you can tidy up before you leave and start every morning clean and organized.

What made me think about this today was a forum post (http://www.manager-tools.com/forums-4822#comment-64728). In it gazman says he started out well with O3s and other helpful behaviours and then let them slide and he was feeling bad about it. If you find yourself in this position, don’t feel bad. It’s natural to find new (and old) things hard and to slide. The secret is, as soon as you’ve realized you’re sliding, get back to the start. If you can make the gaps between good starts smaller, you’ll be closer to having continual new, desired behaviour. So, start tomorrow for the new year, and start again as soon as you need to.

Stay Connected

A recent survey of New Year’s resolutions found that workers are not interested in being out of touch in 2011. Less than one in five workers (19 percent) resolves to unplug from email or voicemail in their time off from work.

The findings lead to the notion that American workers are focused on getting more done in 2011. With an estimated 247 billion emails sent daily (according to Pingdom), Americans are focused on how to become more productive in our post-recession economy and how to get more out of their business communications.

The survey also found that workers resolve to get organized, and respond more quickly to business communications.    

More Organized

The number-one resolution in the survey is to get organized. Sixty-one percent of those polled pledged to keep their business emails and documents more organized in the new year.

The folks at Intermedia give these suggestions:

• Work off your business priorities, not your email inbox. Highly productive workers use email as a communication tool for business results, rather than responding to emails as they come in. Focus on what needs to get done for your job and prioritize email review and response with that in mind.
• Collaborate online rather than simply sending messages back and forth. Email is great for communication, but not always the best tool for collaboration. Tools for document management solve this problem and are available online.
• Unify communications to get back one hour of your life per day. Rather than use separate tools and devices to check email, make phone calls, and instant message colleagues, businesses increasingly use “unified communications” to combine them in one tool. Sage Research estimates this system can increase productivity by over 12.5 percent, or one hour per day for each worker.

Respond Quicker  

Workers want to get organized, stay connected, and respond more quickly to business communications. Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed say that they will resolve to be more prompt when responding to business emails and calls.

What are your New Year’s resolutions? How do you plan to get more organized in 2011?  How connected do you want to be while away from work in 2011?   How do you plan to manage your work life in 2011?

This survey was conducted online in December, 2010 by Harris Interactive on behalf of Intermedia. Respondents were employed US adults who have a New Year’s business communications resolution.

Image by sxc.hu user ba1969

I recently had a conversation with a friend about how much fun it would be for her to open a bakery. We imagined ideas for desserts she might serve, and how she might run her business. But the conversation ended with her saying, “Maybe someday I’ll do something like that.” Immediately, I knew that she probably never would, and I felt very sad — for her, for myself, and for so many other people who sit on the sidelines dreaming, but who never make an effort to pursue their dreams.

Certainly, some of us make half-hearted attempts to accomplish a few of our life and business goals. But how many people do you know who put everything on the line to pursue their deepest, most life-changing dreams? What are the rest of us doing, and what are we waiting for?

Choices and Challenges

Of course, circumstances get in the way. There are challenges, setbacks and detours. But each of us has a choice. Although it won’t be easy to navigate back to the right path, if we say that we can’t find our way around obstacles, we’re making a choice to leave things as they are.

Last night, I was reading about Roald Dahl, author of such hopeful and imaginative books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That might be my absolute favorite story about an underdog who overcomes obstacles while continuing to believe in something, even when all is stacked against him.

It turns out Roald Dahl was a lot like his character Charlie. Dahl’s personal life was filled with hardship and tragedy. In spite of all the challenges he faced, he remained positive and achieved great things. As it says on his website, “The series of misfortunes and tragedies Dahl… suffer[ed did not] made him more bitter. Loss and physical adversity seemed to stimulate his enormous energies to positive action. He fought misfortune as if it was a dragon to be slain.”

Time to Dream Big

I hope that 2011 will be a year of great progress toward achieving our deeply-buried dreams, and a year of doing things that require us to step out of our comfort zones and test our abilities, even if they lead to failure or, even more frightening, success.

I challenge you, as we begin 2011: dust off those gutsy dreams and ambitions you’ve kept to yourself until now. Dare to put yourself out there; do something big this coming year. It doesn’t need to look big to anyone else, but you’ll know it is, because it will require you to go out on a limb and do things in an entirely different way.

For 2011, live the way you truly want to live, and achieve what you’ve only ever dreamed you could achieve.

What big, audacious goals do you have for 2011?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Neal

What are you doing this holiday week? Many of us are sitting back, playing with new gadgets and eating things we shouldn’t. But quite a few workers take advantage of the break to focus on new or ongoing personal projects that spark their passions.

It’s no wonder. When else do we get a good ten days (or more!) off work, and can actually spend that time at home? For me, this is a good chance to make serious progress on projects, try ideas I’ve been toying with but have had no time to work on, and fuel the inspiration that will kick-start the new working year.

If you’re working on a personal project, or you’re considering resurrecting one over the break, here are a few ideas to help you stay focused and motivated, while enjoying the holidays at the same time.

Make Sure Your Break Is a Break

First and foremost, you’ll probably appreciate the break more if you accept that this is holiday time. For me, recharging the batteries is imperative — that’s what holidays are for. So if you can afford to, don’t force yourself to work if there’s something else you’d rather do. The idea of the passionate personal project is that it fills you with a sense of adventure, fun, and excitement — not that it feels like work. If the thought of working on your project seems blissful, do it. If it doesn’t, do something else.

The fact that you’ve decided to work on a personal project doesn’t mean you need to dedicate the entirety of your break to it. The thing I love about this time is that I can work when and as I feel like it. If I wake up and the sun’s out, I might spend the day outside instead of at my desk. On the other hand, if I get right into my personal project and want to pull an all-nighter, I can. Don’t force yourself into a timetable.

Experiment as Broadly as Possible

It can be good to use this time to experiment with the peripheral aspects of a project, as well as with its focus. I’ve found that this approach can help me understand what motivates and supports my work, and can make my money-earning tasks more enjoyable.

So don’t just experiment with your discipline, experiment with everything. As a remote worker, I like to change my work location while I’m focused on personal projects. Instead of sitting at the desk I use for the other fifty weeks of the year, I move around, and the simple change in location somehow alters my perspective.

I also rely entirely on my level of interest (rather than any of the usual motivations) for getting work done. I’m trying a different approach to milestone setting, as well as testing various discipline-specific techniques I’ve never used before. Doing things differently gives me more interest in continuing my personal project, because I’m not just creating something, I’m learning all the time. What I learn can be applied to my day job after the break.

Find a Balance

Working as you feel like it is great, unless you get to the start of the new year and feel like you need a holiday to get over your holidays! Giving yourself over to your passion for a personal project can be extremely fulfilling, but it can also burn you out. Balance is important.

Don’t forget to take time off, see friends or family, and have fun doing other things. By mixing things up and pacing yourself, you can maintain the impetus for your project without running yourself down or squandering valuable opportunities to be with the people you love. Balancing your desires can help you get more out of your project than a rigorous work schedule might.

Share Your Passion

When I’m working during a break, I tend to hole up, shut down my email and phone, and immerse myself in my project. That’s great, but occasionally it’s good to come up for air. One beneficial way to do this is to get in touch with someone else who’s also working on a personal project.

This gives me a sense of support and solidarity. Although I might be tucked away in my own world, I feel connected to others who share the same sense of passion (even if their areas of focus are completely different from my own). But finding out what others are doing can give me ideas for experimenting with my own approach, style, or project — all of which may improve the outcomes of my efforts.

What’s helping you stay inspired while enjoying the benefits of time off during the holidays?

Image by stock.xchng user pepo.

“We will open the book.  Its pages are blank.  We are going to put words on them ourselves.  The book is called Opportunity
and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”
                           -Edith Lovejoy Pierce

The new year brings with it endless possibilities, limited solely by the confines of your imagination.  If you can imagine where you ultimately desire to go, it is infinitely easier to chart a course to reach that destination!

The new year is a time to set new goals.  Whether professional or personal, no goal is so large that it cannot be attained with a clearly defined roadmap, hard work and perseverance.  Goals, whether large or small, can be life-changing.  Start today by defining your goals for 2011 and creating your roadmap to success!

From Leadership Moments, www.leadstar.us

Last weekend, I disconnected from the web completely. I wasn’t on holiday or caught up in an all-consuming weekend adventure, it was just that over the last few months I’d been working weekends as well as full-time during the week, and I’d decided to carve out a little time off.

Unlike a holiday, though, I still needed to go about my ordinary activities. This experience revealed to me how much I’ve come to rely on the web, and highlighted some unexpected ways it’s changing my lifestyle.

Information

When I woke up Saturday morning, I wondered what the weather would be like. Along with things like local farmers’ market locations and times, film screenings and daily news, the weather is something that I tend to check frequently online.

But since I wasn’t connected, I realized I’d just have to wait and see. If I wanted to hear the news, I’d have to plan my information consumption around the television or radio schedules. Or (gasp!) buy a newspaper from the nearest shop, six kilometers away.

Yes, the web gives us access to information on demand, but over the weekend, I realized I’ve come to expect this as a given. Losing that access made me seek alternatives where I could, but mostly, I simply went without the information.

In some cases, this actually curtailed my activity: If you can’t remember — or find out — when the local farmers’ market’s on, you’ll probably forget about it, rather than driving an hour or more to discover it’s not actually on this weekend.

Ultimately, not having access to information forced me to take chances, or to forgo activities.

Self-focus

A lot has been written about the self-obsessive tendencies of those who spend time preening online personas rather than interacting with the real world. For me, without external information and entertainment (for which you could read ‘distraction’), the focus seemed to narrow considerably. It narrowed to whatever I was doing at that exact moment.

By losing touch with the world outside, I was able to hone in on the present, and on myself. Instead of reacting to external information obtained online, my own motivations became clearer. They became the driver for my day.

A very simple example: Since I didn’t know what the weather was going to be  like, I planned my weekend solely on the basis of what I wanted to do at any given time. This self-focus and self-motivation extended into other areas as well, and it was different from the norm.

I wondered if that feeling of ordinarily being motivated or driven by what I find online applied to other workers. I wondered if it may contribute to the sense many workers experience of being at the mercy of technology and information.

Without the web, I had much less outside impetus to do things; everything depended on my mood and internal motivation.

Contact

As you’d expect, lacking access to email and IM meant that all my contact had to be personal. Unless I could fit my communication into a text message, I’d have to call — or visit — someone to communicate with them. Of course, I always use the web to look up phone numbers I don’t know, so it was just as well I didn’t need to contact anyone whose number I hadn’t already saved to my phone.

As someone who values space, the idea of having to call four different people to try to organize a festive season gathering really didn’t appeal, so I put it off until I was back at my computer during the week. As it turns out, I’d rather delay contact than be forced to talk (as I saw it, endlessly) on the phone.

Of course, I received contacts from friends and colleagues online over the weekend, and missed them all. Miscommunication and general confusion ensued — proof that the horror of disconnection is probably justified. After all, this was just one weekend.

The instant, always-on nature of the web has made timeliness a priority, and an expectation: People expect to be able to get in touch with us at the last minute. I expect to be able to do the same.

Being disconnected restricted my contact to the immediate — phone or face-to-face communications — and reduced the amount of flexibility I felt I had.

Preoccupation

As my disconnected weekend progressed, I found myself less and less preoccupied with anything — any event, person, or piece of information — that wasn’t within my immediate physical realm.

In short, if it wasn’t hitting me in the face, it didn’t matter.

Without my calendar, I had no idea which social engagements I was supposed to be anticipating. Without email I had no expectation that anyone would contact me without my knowledge. I had nothing to check, nothing to confirm, nothing to concern myself with.

This was a relief. Naturally, being less preoccupied with an external world allowed me to focus more closely on what I was actually doing. Without the thought that I should check my mail, or the inclination to look at the news as I passed my desk, I was free to put my whole mind to the tasks at hand. This was a great thing, even if I had no idea what was happening in the news.

Occasionally I wondered what might be happening elsewhere in the world — including online — but I did enjoy having a clear focus on the here and now.

Planning

Ultimately, being disconnected highlighted how easy the web makes coordinating events with other people, and obtaining information that helps us stay organized.

I realized that to plan a family lunch without the web, I’d have to call a bunch of people, which made it seem like an awful lot of effort. Sending an email to five people takes maybe ten minutes. Calling those same five people would take at least fifteen minutes apiece. Planning social events is much more time-consuming without the web.

Almost all the other tasks for which I’d have used the web that weekend were to search for information that is available in newspapers, on town calendars, and so on. If I had to live without the web, I’d still be able to access the information I need, but it would need to be a much more planned, less spontaneous proposition.

The web reduces our need to plan ahead, and to anticipate potential needs for information.

Does this image depict the common person today?

Someone who:

• doesn’t (or can’t) anticipate needs for information or plan contacts with others
• is happily distracted from their immediate circumstances by the web
• relies, to some degree, on the web for inspiration or motivation
• feels a sense of missing out, preoccupation, or an ongoing curiosity about the online world as a result of these three factors

This description does seem to define, in some part, many of the people I know. While I’m not saying this is all we are — not by a long shot — I do think that some time spent completely disconnected from the web probably isn’t a bad idea. I think the aspect that surprised me most was the fresh sense of motivation I felt; I enjoyed relying on my internal motivations for once, rather than seeking information to inspire me to take action.

Do you disconnect completely from the web sometimes? Have you found that it changes your expectations or behavior?

Image by stock.xchng user Ayla87.