Being more productive with instant messaging
An extremely interesting post has appeared on Web Worker Daily about being more productive with instant messaging (IM). The article isn’t anything new by any means but it is still good to read stuff like this every now and then.
At one point, Skype and IM were taking up so much of my time that I was forced to publish my Skype rules. This led to a lot of hurt feeling and grumbling, but ironically the only people who were hurt and grumbling were the people who consider chatting all day perfectly acceptable. You know, the students who are not studying, the unemployed who are supposed to be looking for work, the employed who were avoiding work, those sort of people. While I try to be friendly and chatty to everyone who gets in touch with me, sometimes you just need to cut the conversation short to get back to work. Constant chatting doesn’t pay the bills.
That’s why I put a lot of stock into status messages. If it says “busy” then I am busy. If it says “away”, I’m away. You’d be amazed how many people just don’t “get it”.
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