Home › Blogs › Merlin's blog ›

Brian Oberkirch on reducing noise and stealing back attention

Submitted by Merlin on April 20, 2007 - 6:03am.

Trimming the attention sails at Like It Matters

<

div style=”float:right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 15px;”>

The 4-Hour Workweek
by Timothy Ferriss

Friend of the Folders, Brian Oberkirch, has gone on a tempo-attentional crash diet:

I had a “no mas” moment. I have a project generating a ridiculous amount of non-productive email. I have social networking service emails crufting up my inbox. I burned time in online ‘debates’ I just shouldn’t have gotten involved in. And I read Tim Ferris’ 4 Hour Work Week, which unhinged my mind and helped me think totally differently about goals, workflow, and being a stringent gatekeeper of your time.

I’ve met with Tim Ferriss a couple times (fascinating guy) and have a galley copy of his new book sitting on my desk right now. With what Brian says (combined with the raves for the book I heard from a couple folks I trust last night), I expect I’ll be starting into it today.

Back to Brian’s project: while you may not necessarily need to make your world as completely devoid of noise and distraction as Brian has, I encourage you to review his list. There’s a gold mine of tips in there for ways you might also choose to wrest back your attention and start responsibly firewalling your time.

Loathe as I am to admit it, I’ve recently had to adopt one of Brian’s dicta and have already used it twice today:

Make ‘no’ the default answer for new project/app review/etc. requests. New things should earn their way into the attention field.

Anything you’d add? Got a felonious time burglar you’ve recently arrested?

in

Here's a terrific auto-reply I...

Submitted by Dan Markovitz (not verified) on April 20, 2007 - 2:49pm.

Here’s a terrific auto-reply I came across recently that might (just might) get people to stop and think before hitting you with another email. Check this out:

“Please help me implement STREAMLINED and EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION.

I am experiencing an overflow of messages in my email IN box to the point that I will never be able to catch-up.

If you are awaiting an answer from me on an old message or if your present message contains important information that I need to know, please pick up the phone and advise either myself or my assistant Sally (123-456-7890).

If you just routinely put me in the CC list, please avoid this.

My function is not to read emails, but to manage a company and the important relationships that I have with my Customers, Suppliers and Employees.

Thank you for your cooperation in helping me dealing with this problem.”