Keeping Instant Messaging Out of Your Way

The hardest habit for me to break (and something I’m still working on) when trying to streamline my work environment was that of checking my email every 5 minutes. It was something I’d done for so long, that I almost felt bad about it. But, after a few weeks of trying I’ve been able to cut my email-checking down to about once every hour or so (or much less than that, depending on what I’m working on). However, instant messaging (IM) is a completely different beast. It is, by nature, immediate and synchronous. This can be a nightmare for folks who do their best work when they can spend 2-3 hours just cranking away, uninterrupted. How often have you been totally zoned in on whatever you’re working on, only to have your concentration ripped asunder by a little flashing icon in your system tray or in the task bar? Bob wants to know if you’ve gotten those TPS reports or maybe Timmy is inquiring about your lunch plans. Either way, your focus has been lost and you’ll now have to spend several minutes getting it back. There must be a better way!

Well, I think I’ve found one. This is for the folks who, at work, are required to use IM as well as email for work-related communication (as I am):

• Use Meebo instead of a locally-installed client application – If you’re unfamiliar, Meebo is a web-based IM site that allows you to connect to most major IM networks (Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Google Talk/Jabber) right in your browser. If you are using Firefox (and you should be), create a new tab just for Meebo. If the tab is active, then the Firefox button in your task bar will flash when you get a new message, but it won’t if the Meebo tab isn’t active. You can now receive messages without anything flashing!
• Perpetually mark yourself as Busy or Away - This is a little trick I learned awhile back when I was faced with a constant barrage of incoming messages. Even as I write this, I’m marked as ‘Busy’ in Meebo, and you know what? I get probably 25% of the volume of messages I was getting before implementing this practice. For some reason, if you’re ‘Busy’, people have a much harder time interrupting you with unimportant stuff. And, really, it’s not being dishonest or misleading – I’m at work, so I’m doing other things besides waiting for Harold to tell me a dirty joke.

So, if you can have IM communication available without the annoying blinky things and (ostensibly) cutting your incoming messages down by a large percentage, I think you’ll find that you actually can find IM useful without it becoming a nuisance.

Technorati Tags: productivity, instant messaging, im, web2.0