Imagine you would like to discuss an important matter with a specific colleague. You walk into her room only to discover that she is not in. You pick up your mobile phone, search for the phone number and call her. However, she rejects the phone call. You waste precious time walking to her room, your matter is not discussed and possibly you are annoyed by the fact that your colleague did not react. On the other hand your colleague is, due to your call, interrupted from her current activity. A major reason for such situations is that your context and the context of your colleague do not match. In the example above, the location and current activity of you and your colleague do not match. Nevertheless, you still would like to discuss the matter with her. You can either stay monitoring the room of your colleague or start a meeting scheduling process (for example using Outlook). Both processes require your attention and information to judge whether the right conditions exist for the meeting to take place.

We envision a system, which we call AYEC (‘At Your Earliest Convenience’), that facilitates ‘schedule and forget’’: A user can schedule a meeting and specify conditions under which this meeting can take place. He does not have to monitor these conditions (‘forget’), since the system evaluates when the specified conditions become true and subsequently notifies the intended participants. In this way, the system takes over the monitoring task.

For example, you would like to sit down and have a brief talk with two colleagues on a specific topic. You specify in the system which colleagues you would like to meet and specify that all of you should be in the same office, available for interruption and working on the same project. Currently, one of these colleagues is out of the building. When the system detects this colleague enters the building the specified meeting conditions become true and the system sends everybody a request to meet.

AYEC is enabled by evolutions in available sensory devices and the rise of ubiquitous communications. AYEC uses collected information to adapt to the situations of users. This paradigm is called context-awareness. This paradigm is currently being explored in the Future Workspaces project by Tom Broens, Cristian Hesselman and Maarten Wegdam of Novay.

• Being less dependent on your own memory to remember things
• Deciding more quickly about what you’re going to do when
• Getting a better grip on your time

The booklet can be downloaded here (English) or here (Dutch).

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.

SlowLife helps you to escape the hectic of modern times, by explicitly creating moments to reflect, to put things into perspective, or just to enjoy. Examples are: going to your work on foot, taking the time for a good and healthy breakfast with your family, taking an afternoon off just to do ‘nothing’.

From www.slowlife.nl (in Dutch):

“Slowlife staat voor zaken als genieten, leven met de seizoenen, spontane ontmoetingen, uitgebreid koken, eerlijk eten, met plezier werken, dromen, tijd nemen voor wat echt belangrijk is: een liefde, een droom, een goed doel, mensen…

Slowlife wil mensen bewegen op tijd gas terug te nemen voordat zij – en hun omgeving – voortijdig opbranden. Zij wil daarvoor ideeën en mogelijkheden aanreiken.

Symbool voor slowlife staat de molen die draait op wat de natuur hem aanbiedt. Bij harde wind staat hij te zwoegen, bij een flinke wind ijverig te wieken, bij geen wind staat hij schaamteloos te niksen. In een ‘donquichotterige’- context staat de molen ook voor dromen en ingaan tegen de heersende (‘druk, druk,druk’) stroom.”

Digital nomads tend to have long working days. They are expected to be available during evenings and weekends, but also feel obliged to work during traditional working hours. So in the new world of work, work-life balance is not just fading – it’s shifting. And with less time to unwind, mental stress accumulates.

The MSI meter makes you aware how much mental strain has built up. It monitors your physiological stress levels (muscle tension in your shoulders and neck, eye blinking rate, heart rate, blood pressure) and warns you if these are out of healthy range. The meter makes you aware of this and provides suggestions for stress reduction. It suggests microbreaks or a change of activity, or even hints you to reschedule appointments.