Clive Thompson wrote a good piece at the New York Times on our interrupt-driven world (although there is a leetle too much Microsoft in there). Thompson doesn't provide a pointless list of conventional wisdom how-tos, but instead examines the real imperatives of how we live now, splitting our attention across a bunch of different projects, activities, and goals, and responding all day long to an endless series of interrupts.

[from Meet the Life Hackers - New York Times]

Yet while interruptions are annoying, Mark's study also revealed their flip side: they are often crucial to office work. Sure, the high-tech workers grumbled and moaned about disruptions, and they all claimed that they preferred to work in long, luxurious stretches. But they grudgingly admitted that many of their daily distractions were essential to their jobs. When someone forwards you an urgent e-mail message, it's often something you really do need to see; if a cellphone call breaks through while you're desperately trying to solve a problem, it might be the call that saves your hide. In the language of computer sociology, our jobs today are "interrupt driven." Distractions are not just a plague on our work - sometimes they are our work. To be cut off from other workers is to be cut off from everything.

As we switch to a real-time basis for our work and lives, we will need to adopt new strategies for coping with the disruption this causes. Rejection of real time is not a successful strategy, because business is moving onto a real time footing, and people have to move along, or be bounced. We are all part of a new ethos, rapidly emerging in the world of instant messaging, RSS feeds, VoIP presence, blackberries, and always-on-cellular communication. Finding a balance between complete interruptibility and complete inaccessibility is core to our success in accomodating the new pressures on our time and attention.

Thompson's focus on gizmos -- like bigger computer screens -- as a means to better deal with life's complexities, is interesting but ultimately not relevant. The social aspects of real time life will swamp any specific technology's impacts. I believe in tools, but effective application requires changes in behavior. For example, effective use of IM in groups means people must adopt the five cardinal rules of IM:

1. Turn on your IM client, and leave it on. (The Turn It On rule).
2. Change your IM state as your state changes. (The Coffee Break rule.)
3. It is not impolite to ping people. (The Knock-Knock rule.)
4. It is not impolite to ignore people. (The I'm Busy rule.)
5. Try IM first. (The IM First rule.)