Station Master's Journal

This is quite possibly the greatest office video ever created. Where do all these people work?

The Great Office War from Runawaybox on Vimeo.

In a study last year, Dr Thomas Jackson of Loughborough University, England, found that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email (bit.ly/email2). So people who check their email every five minutes waste 81/2hours a week figuring out what they were doing moments before.

Source: smh.com.au/nwes/biztech

This is a stunning statistic and I can definitely see the effect that rampant email checking can have in the workplace. In our dynamic office environment I've been trying to keep to checking email to 3-4 times per day. I find that once in the morning, once after lunch, and once closer to the end of the day really helps keep my focus task oriented. Apparently it also saves me 8.5 hours a week just in refocusing time according to this. One of the biggest reasons I've ran with this approach to checking email is that it also allows me to get through email in a very rapid way by batching writing emails together at one time. Just a few bits of food for thought.

Just a quick plug here for a fun website called "Type is Art". As a associate member of the Graphic Designers of Canada(GDC) I've been busy broadening my knowledge of typography as it is also the focus of the association this year - and really enjoyed the experience at this dynamic site. The Type is Art site is an interactive exploration of different components of the typographic form and really does have some very fun educational elements. If you have any interest in typography be sure to give it a look.