"Interruptions are the enemy of productivity," says Jason Fried, founder of 37signals. "Interruptions break your day into small, incoherent pieces and prevent you from getting in the zone."


Fried should know. While in the zone, he and his colleagues created a suite of productivity software for designers, publishers, marketers, and small businesses, including BaseCamp™, the much-heralded project management and collaboration software, and Campfire™, an easy-to-use web-based group chat tool.
Fried was speaking – without interruption – at the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) Summit last week, and he recounted how he and an overseas colleague achieved spectacular productivity working individually and then later sharing their work through email and instant messages. (The process was similar to posting work on Fried's product BaseCamp™.)
So appealing was their long-distance collaboration, the two agreed to work together in Chicago, where Fried is based, to achieve even greater creative success. But once in the same office and able to talk whenever necessary, productivity plummeted.
What happened? Fried claimed it was nothing more than interruptions – constant, well-meaning, and destructive.
Fried likens work, which he clearly loves, to REM sleep. Uninterrupted, work and sleep offer us deep, restorative benefits. But interrupted work – just like interrupted sleep – results in degraded performance, irritability, and unhappiness.
What to do? Fried is full of suggestions for encouraging innovation and boosting productivity:
Encourage alone time
Fried suggested periods of no talking – say from 1 p.m. on. (OK readers, is this realistic? I'll admit it, for a writer, alone time is productivity nirvana, but it's hard to achieve during the business day.)
In our office of designers, writers, developers, and the like, we don't mandate alone time, but we do use yellow caution tape strung across our workspaces to warn others off when we're on deadline – or simply in the zone. It's fun, and it sends an unambiguous message: Interrupt me at your peril!
Severely limit meetings
Fried said meetings are "toxic, costly time wasters that convey an abysmally small amount of information per minute." And they "procreate." At this point in the presentation, many of the 600 interactive marketing professionals in the room were nodding vigorously. Fried then suggested standing meetings. Literally. As in on your feet. Not the standing meetings most of us now attend, as in every Wednesday at 9 a.m. (Hmmm. I'm trying to image a standing standing boardroom meeting.)
Keep teams (really) small
Fried suggested two people. (There was an audible gasp from the audience of 600.) My colleagues and I have achieved success using two-person teams: Writer + Designer. Information Architect + Researcher. Producer + Developer. Account Executive + Creative. Does this work in your business?
Collaborate passively, rather than actively
Fried suggested accomplishing your part of the work, then using email, instant messaging, or BaseCamp™ as a way to receive comments from your team, rather than relying on – guess what – interruption.
Fried has an interesting name. Mispronounced, it's "fried," that state we all attain after a day of too many meetings, emails, and interruptions. Perhaps it's significant that this productivity evangelist's name is pronounced "freed," as in free from the shackles of an unproductive work day.
So, do you agree? Is a workplace free of interruptions a workplace full of productivity? Do interruptions hamper innovation?