Ruth Rendell Quotes

There are different usage patterns - I never do email during the day. I don't multitask well at all. I don't know how to be in a meeting and participate and be on email at the same time. I do see some people do it more effectively. I've never quite figured that out.

I find it so easy to get distracted - I try not to do more than one thing at any one time.

It's a fallacy that writers have to shut themselves up in their ivory towers to write. I have all these interruptions, three of which I gave birth to. If I was thrown for a loop every time I was distracted I could never get anything done.

If I know somebody is coming 'round, it is incredibly difficult for me to work because I'm waiting for this interruption - even the children's comings and goings are interruptions. Cake-making is a good way of coming out of that space.

No one would choose to be jerked randomly off task again and again until you have half a dozen things you're trying to get done, all at the same time.

I really love writing, but I am very easily distracted: my two cats fighting, a rainbow, a TV show... I have to use every trick to keep myself at the computer.

I write slowly and get distracted a lot.

I don't mind being distracted.

To be honest, I don't enjoy watching movies much when I'm working. They tend to fall apart on me a bit.

The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.

I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.

I need to have something else going on. I'm able to write a lot if I have an episode of 'Friday Night Lights' going on my computer.

I don't listen to music when I write - I find it distracting.

I think I'm really good at forgetting about golf when I'm off the golf course.

One look at an email can rob you of 15 minutes of focus. One call on your cell phone, one tweet, one instant message can destroy your schedule, forcing you to move meetings, or blow off really important things, like love, and friendship.

Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant.

I can multitask like crazy. I'm riddled with ADD - a blessing and a curse.

I always interrupt work with other work, either in a small way or big way, so that's normal.

While you're writing, you can't concentrate nearly as well on what the speaker is saying.

If you try to multitask in the classic sense of doing two things at once, what you end up doing is quasi-tasking. It's like being with children. You have to give it your full attention for however much time you have, and then you have to give something else your full attention.

Here's the problem with phones - they are a ready-made diversion from the considerably harder work of growing a business.

I don't think it's good to be a distraction to your team.

We need to blinker ourselves, to better monitor our attentional focus. Enforced periods of no email or Internet to allow us to sustain concentration have been shown to be tremendously helpful. And breaks - even a 15-minute break every two or three hours - make us more productive in the long run.

It's incredibly hard to get meaningful work done when your workday has been shredded into work moments.

A lot of people don't feel like doing very much. Or one project is really all they can do at one time. I can have five or six things going at the same time. It doesn't bother me or tire me, but sometimes it does rattle me.