Case Study – Rescue Time Research

You may have heard of an app you can download on to your computer called Rescue Time? For those of you who haven’t, it’s an app that tracks how you spend time on your digital devices. It’s an app that would make any of us cringe.

The crew at Rescue Time looked at the data from 50,000+ of their users and found that the average knowledge worker ‘checks in’ on communication tools such as email and IM (Instant Message) every 6 minutes. Note: Checking in refers to any time a user switches from a productive task to a communication tool.

When they broke down the data even further the cringing didn’t stop.

35.5% of users ‘checked in’ on communication every 3 minutes or less and only 18.6% can go a full 20 minutes on average.

40% of knowledge workers never get 30 minutes straight of focused time in their day.
This begs the questions – How are we meant to get any focused/high value work done in the day when we are switching to communication tools every 6 minutes and not getting at least one block of focus for 30 minutes a day? The short answer is that you CAN’T!

Why Find your Flow?

“Flow” is a state of mind where we feel in total pursuit, execute tasks effortlessly, and achieve the peak of our performance.

When you’re in the state of Flow, you are completely focused on the task at hand, forget about yourself, about others, about the world around you, lose track of time, feel happy and in control and become creative and productive.

I love days where I am so absorbed in my work that at the end of the day I wonder where the time went. I’ve found my ‘flow’. What I also love about Flow is that it takes the very Zen concept of being completely in the moment, and applies it to work tasks.

How can you switch off communication tools for windows in our day and find our flow!