This little test (an interactive MS Excel sheet) scans for your current personal information management strategy, and your collaboration and knowledge sharing attitude. It focuses on those aspects that are affected most by the changes brought about by new, ICT-enabled ways of working. Use this test to examine how ready you are for “the new way of work”.
The test is currently only available in Dutch and can be downloaded here.
For decades, the paperless office seems to be just around the corner. However, even with the advent of laptops, smartphones, and mobile working styles, the reality today is that in most offices paper is still everywhere. Apparently, paper is fulfilling an important role for knowledge workers that digital technology still doesn’t. (more…)
Information overload is often associated with uncertainty and work pressure resulting from the abundance of information people are confronted with during their daily work. Information overload therefore takes on the symptoms of work-related stress, something that one person is simply more prone to than another. When this form of stress develops, the strengths and weaknesses of your personality and your personal work style play a key role. These three self assessments (interactive MS Excel sheets) are designed to examine these aspects in detail. (more…)
A growing number of knowledge workers is confronted with the consequences of information overload on a daily basis. In the METIS knowledge management project we performed a pilot study at the petrochemical multinational Basell (now LyondellBasell), where we investigated the causes of information overload and evaluated instruments to reduce the impact of information overload. A leaflet summarizing the study can be downloaded here (English), and a presentation with highlights of the study can be downloaded here (English) or here (Dutch).
A lot of work comes in via your inbox each and every day. In this booklet, we discuss a number of features in MS Outlook 2003 that you can use to deal with this continuous flow of work more efficiently. As a stepping stone, we use a working method that is often taught in time management and personal efficiency courses for dealing with e-mail. (more…)
Wij zijn onze eigen vijand zeggen Spira en Goldes van Basex in hun onderzoek naar information overload. De heren schatten de ellende van improductieve tijd op een schade van maar liefst $ 650 miljard aan de economie (in plaats van de eerder genoemde $ 588 miljard). Ja het zijn de kosten van werkonderbrekingen door informatie-interrupties. Een gemiddelde kenniswerker richt zijn aandacht dagelijks zo’n keer of vijftig op zijn email, blijkt weer uit onderzoek van de firma “RescueTime” onder 40.000 kenniswerkers. De jongens van Basex hebben nu samen met onder andere IBM, Microsoft en Google de Information Overload Research Group opgericht. Lid worden? Niet te snel, want Scientific American komt net met het bericht dat bloggen goed voor je is en dan doe je zelf weer mee aan die informatie-overload. Het is om gek van te worden. (source: frankwatching.com, 23-7-08)
“[...] Personal productivity is indeed personal, so always take study result findings around digital life and the ensuing prescriptive solutions with more than one grain of salt [...]” (Source: Lifehacker.com, 23 July 2008)
In 2010 gebruiken meer bedrijven instant messaging dan e-mail voor hun communicatie. Dit concludeert IDC uit onderzoek in opdracht van Nortel Networks. (Source: Automatisering Gids, July 7, 2008)
Door de explosieve stijging van het e-mailgebruik heeft ruim de helft van de Nederlandse beroepsbevolking wel eens last van een ‘information overload’. Dit artikel uit Inforworld beschrijft ervaringen van managers en medewerkers. (Source: Infoworld, June 24, 2008)
What it is: a more efficient day schedule, by grouping fragments of related work (detached actions) into larger, contiguous chunks.
How it works: a wizard analyzes your to do list (for actionable items) and your and your coworker’s agendas (for schedules and availability) to come up with an optimized schedule that requires fewer context switches.
For instance, it will group all activities that I need to do for the same project or with the same person(s) and plan these in one contiguous time slot.
An interactive map showing the current location of your nomadic colleagues. Based on GSM network data, and accessible anywhere using your PDA or smartphone. Click on a colleague’s avatar to get status and availability information, or to contact him or her. BuddySpotter lets you locate your colleagues and setup ad hoc face-to-face meetings. It will also make you more aware of your coworkers’ whereabouts and activities.
Email is frequently used to assign work to others; it has become a “poor men’s workflow system”. Senders often expect a (nearly) immediate response, whereas recipients may think very differently – but are often silent – about that. A simple “No!”-button (“No!” for “I cannot do this”) can lower the threshold for the recipient to give a prompt reply and thus avoid unnecessary confusion for the sender (did she get my message?).
You personal (net)workspace
The Social Workspace is first and foremost a personalized space where you can organize your work: here you have access to your e-mail, to-do lists, most frequently read RSS feeds, the “hot” documents you are working on, but this is also the place where you stay in touch with your network, both professional and social.
The Social Workspace acknowledges that much of our work does not happen in isolation and that being able to interact with others can greatly accelerate our thought processes. (more…)
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