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The cost of interrupted work (2023)

(blog.oberien.de)
282 points _vaporwave_ | 1 comments | 23 Aug 25 21:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.237s | source
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didibus ◴[24 Aug 25 00:44 UTC] No.45000291[source]▶
I think the original source is a 2006 Gallup interview with the researcher Gloria Mark you can read here: https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/23146/too-many-inter...

> GMJ: How long does it take to get back to work after an interruption?

> Mark: There's good news and bad news. To have a uniform comparison, we looked at all work that was interrupted and resumed on the same day. The good news is that most interrupted work was resumed on the same day -- 81.9 percent -- and it was resumed, on average, in 23 minutes and 15 seconds, which I guess is not so long.

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kaffekaka ◴[24 Aug 25 07:01 UTC] No.45002007[source]▶
I interpret this and the article as saying that those 23 minutes are not spent trying to resume the original task, but on the interruption itself and the other intervening tasks that are worked on before returning to the original task.

If that interpretation is correct, those 23 mins are not wasted in confusion but simply spent on other things.

Do i read it correctly?

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1. didibus ◴[24 Aug 25 16:53 UTC] No.45005748[source]▶
Yes you read it correctly. It's the time of the "interruption" itself. From when you stopped working on your task to when you resumed working on it.

In that time away from your task you might have answered questions, worked another small task, relaxed, chit chatted, etc.

The time to refocus on the task once resumed wasn't measured, but participants said it was "very detrimental".

> Thus, people’s attention was directed to multiple other topics before resuming work. This was reported by informants as being very detrimental

So we don't exactly know how much time it took participants to get back to a focused state on their task, we just know the time they were away from it.