{"id":169,"date":"2007-09-26T14:23:57","date_gmt":"2007-09-26T13:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/progmanager.wordpress.com\/2007\/09\/26\/bob-geldof-on-time-management\/"},"modified":"2007-09-26T14:23:57","modified_gmt":"2007-09-26T13:23:57","slug":"bob-geldof-on-time-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2007\/09\/26\/bob-geldof-on-time-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Geldof on Time Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This morning on Radio 4 they did a piece on the role of the internet in modern society.<\/p>\n

Bob Geldof offered a wonderful piece of time management advice.\u00a0 I understood him to say that that none of the companies that he was ‘involved with’ were allowed to receive e-mails before 2.00pm.\u00a0 He went on to say that he ‘would like to think’ that this improved productivity.<\/p>\n

I am sure it does.\u00a0 The whole morning is available without e-mail distraction to do high value work.\u00a0 This stops people easing their way into the day by ‘doing’ e-mails only to find half the day gone and they have got nothing (of real consequence) done.<\/p>\n

I only download e-mails every three hours – a thought which horrifies most people.\u00a0 But once they recognise that there really is no such thing as an urgent e-mail – and that I\u00a0 enjoy the benefits of long periods at work un-interrupted by e-mail most start to see the point.<\/p>\n

Another good reason for Bob’s ‘no e-mail till 2’ rule is that doing e-mail is a pretty low level activity.\u00a0 Much of it can be done on auto-pilot – so do it after lunch – when we take a bit of a performance hit anyway.<\/p>\n