Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better, Third Edition

Hack 44: Set Up Communication Quiet Hours

Level Medium

Platform Windows and Mac OS X

Cost Free to $10

What follows is a common scenario (real or imagined) that keeps some of us from turning off those flow-disrupting communication tools: You shut down your IM and email applications, and you successfully made it into “the zone.” It’s going so well that you actually do lose all sense of time, and you’ve completely forgotten to re-open your communication channels. As a result, you missed an important email that you needed to respond to, no one could get in touch with you over IM, and you weren’t able to respond to that workplace “crisis” in a timely manner.

For most, this scenario is more imagined than real — a result of the conditioning that has trained you to respond to that digital “DING!” as soon as you hear it. Real or not, you can benefit from setting up some sort of “quiet hours” — times when you can completely go off the grid for a set period of time. Here’s how to block out your computer distractions but ensure you’ll remember to get back online when necessary.

Put Your Communication Break on a Timer with Quiet Hours

To address this scenario, I developed a free application called Quiet Hours7 that enables you to shut down your biggest desktop distractions for a user-determined period of time with the reassurance that it will relaunch them after your communication-free time has ended. Here’s how it works:

1. Download Quiet Hours from http://lifehacker.com/5747234 and follow ...