Katharine Whitehorn Quotes

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

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.

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

People put on their earphones, they lay out their phones, they put - open up their computers, and they convince themselves that they're most productive when they're focused on their e-mail, when, really, they're ignoring the cafeteria, the watercooler, the meetings with colleagues, the times when really the creativity, collaboration happens.

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.

The horrible truth is we are linear beings; we can't multitask, and we shouldn't keep interrupting important connections to each other with the latest message coming in.

Still, I tune out the visual input when it is too distracting, mainly in conversations.

I tend to write in coffee shops and restaurants with friends of mine because if I'm at home, I get distracted by the television or the cats or my husband, or... you know - all of those things that make it easy to procrastinate.

Possibly I am difficult to live with, but I don't bring my work home much. I'm either busy or not busy. And I don't work from home. I have an office here which has a white wall. No view. I did try working in a room with a view but it was too interesting. Too distracting.

I think what you learn, working on a film or TV set, is how to tune certain things out. You've got 60-100 people swirling around you, each of them with a very important job to do.

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

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.

The office during the day has become the last place people want to be when they really want to get work done. In fact, offices have become interruption factories.

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

I've been in a recording studio enough times to know that it is not the best place to multitask. Doing a couple of takes of a song and running out to check your email to talk to someone about video production really is not good.

It's hard to watch something go on and be talking at the same time.

Many people feel they must multi-task because everybody else is multitasking, but this is partly because they are all interrupting each other so much.

I get so many requests for interviews. If I talk to everyone, we can't do our job with our customers and work on our software. It would be hard to stay focused.

As soon as you start figuring out what you're going to do, something will interrupt it.

You have to think of them as your peers. You can't really - when you're on the course and looking up to anybody, you're saying, 'Wow, that's so and so,' that's when you get into trouble. For instance, if you're paired with them, then what do you do?

I've tried writing with music on, but I find it distracting.

It's better to be incognito because otherwise everyone is talking to you because they know you - and you can't concentrate on the training because everyone is talking to you.

It amazes me how much noise there is on a set while people are trying to focus and do their jobs. But there's some kind of order within that chaos.

I multitask and always have the TV on in the background. If I need to focus, I generally have to turn off the TV.

Our lives are full of distractions, and that's life. The sounds of the street, the thoughts in our minds, family on-goings, tasks at work, and Facebook friends, oh my!