Five days and no instant messaging
Warning: This could be the most boring post of the decade:
I didn’t log on to instant messenger for five days.
An interesting result of not signing on for that long is that many people began to wonder where I was. Some people were actually quite concerned. People who I usually chat with every day suddenly didn’t hear from me for almost a week. Sorry! That wasn’t my intent.
I did it more as an experiment. Instant messenging is a great tool and I think sometimes over-utilized. I am not sure. I probably have 10 or 15 chat sessions in a typical day. I’m usually signed in all day. Whether productive or not, it takes up a lot of time. So I was curious to take a few days off(line) and see what happened.
Did I save time? Increase productivity?
Yes, maybe. It wasn’t a very long experiment so it’s hard to say. The first few days were actually quite productive. I found that after a few days I didn’t miss it. I focused on work. I even had less incentive to be online. I think that was the biggest change.
Bottom line? An interesting experiment and perhaps a reality check. It’s interesting how people depend on IM to see who’s “there.” – Either way, I’ll be online for the forseeable future, so send me a note if you want. My AIM is BrooksBrotherAZ.