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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

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The Onion Weekly Dispatch - August 08, 2012

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Pet Eating Like Country Isn't In Goddamn Recession 08.08.12

RICHMOND, IN—Apparently heedless of the dismal fiscal climate, local dog Digby is wolfing down kibble as though the United States isn't limping its way through a goddamn economic crisis, the pet's owners confirmed Thursday. According to reports, the...

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How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available

August 8th, 2012Top Story

How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available

By Alan Henry

How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available You don't have the luxury of ignoring meetings and email, putting on headphones, and working uninterrupted as long as you want—even though those are the times you really get things done. Distractions are real, they're part of our workday, and they're not going away. So how do you stay productive when you're expected to be on top of your inbox, or keep IM open while you work?

How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available

The Problem: Distractions Are Part Of Your Job

At my last job, I didn't have the luxury of checking my email only when I wanted to. People would ask me as soon as I walked in if I got their email from the night before, and if I didn't respond to an email or IM within a few minutes—especially if it was urgent—I could expect someone standing at my desk asking about it. I'm willing to bet that your job is similar: you probably can't just tell your boss "Sorry, I only check my email twice a day."

A slowly filling inbox, distracting instant messages, meetings scheduled when you're trying to work—they're all facts of life for most of us, and while we often discuss how you can eliminate distractions, for many of us those distractions are our work. All is not lost, though! You can bring those interruptions under control so you can focus and get work done without being frustrated every time someone IMs you, or without jumping into your email every time a new message comes in. In this post, we're going to discuss how. Photo by TJ.

So how do you take control when you're expected to be on top of your inbox and available via IM all day? Here's the short version: You need to start working on your own terms, but learn to walk the line between what you can get away with and what your coworkers—and more importantly, your boss—won't allow. Don't tell your boss that you "only check your email at 10am, 2pm, and 4pm," just set your mail client to check for new messages every 90 minutes instead of every five and see how it works. Get called out for missing an email? Bring it back to 60 minutes. See where we're going? Let's dive in.

Tame Your Distracting Inbox, Instant Messages, and Phone by Putting Them on Autopilot

Your email, corporate IM, and your phone are all probably the biggest sources of distraction at your job, and yet they're the things you're always expected to respond to when they start ringing and beeping. That doesn't mean you have to be a slave to it though. Here's what we mean:

How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available Put Your Email on Autopilot: Before you can comfortably stop checking your email every few minutes, you'll want to make sure you don't miss anything important.

  • Use Tools that Automatically Keep Your Inbox Clean. For example: Unroll.me automatically collects newsletters and subscriptions, rolls them up into a single daily newsletter, and then lets you choose which of them hit your inbox. Boomerang is one of our favorite tools for scheduling and delaying messages until you need to see them, and more. It works in Outlook too, so if your office doesn't use Gmail or Google accounts, you can still reap its inbox-cleaning benefits.
  • Use of Filters and Rules to Do Heavy Lifting for You. Whether it's Gmail, Outlook, or something else, routing mail from your inbox directly to the place it eventually needs to be saves time and gives you one less reason to jump when a new message arrives. You can also set emails from your boss to automatically be flagged as urgent, use Gmail's priority inbox to float important thing to the top, or even use filters to track messages you want to follow up on so you don't have to remember.
  • Get a System. Special tools aren't a panacea. The most powerful inbox cleaning tool is you. Stop using your inbox like a filing cabinet and get those to-dos into something that you'll actually use, even if it's pen and paper, and file your messages away so your inbox takes less time and energy to look at. We're fans of the trusted trio of folders: It works like a charm to keep your inbox empty, even if you're mostly just moving things around.

How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available Pull Back How Frequently You Check Your Mail: Like I mentioned, in my last job, catching an important message versus missing it would often be the difference between being ahead of the game or hopelessly behind. If you can't check your email every few hours, try setting it to check every hour instead. If that doesn't work for you, set it to every half-hour. Find a balance that works for you—turning off auto-notify doesn't mean you have to give up your "fastest reply in the office" title—trust me, I was that guy for years.

The point isn't to stop getting your email, just to stop jumping like a trained dog every time a new message lands, and to choose the smallest amount of time you know you can go between checks. That way you know how long you can work in peace in between new messages. Distractions cease to be distractions when they're scheduled, planned for, and on your terms. You can still have the convenience of near-real-time email without hearing a "ding!" every 30 seconds.

How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available Train Your Coworkers to Understand and Respect Away Messages: Back in the day, your away message was the most informative way you could tell your friends where you were or what you were doing. Even if you don't use IM socially, bring those principles into the office. Instead of just labeling yourself "Away," pick "Custom" and let your coworkers know "Head down working—will respond to IM's in 30 minutes. Call if it's urgent." or "Out to lunch, will be back in at 2pm." Use your IM status as a proactive communications tool—it may not stop your coworkers from messaging you, but over time, between your auto-responses and reinforcing the point by talking to them, they'll understand that your status message is for their benefit.

Make Your Phone Less Distracting by Keeping It Quiet but In Sight: You have surprisingly little control over your desk phone—after all, when someone calls you they're essentially saying "I want your attention right this second," so unplugging it is a bad idea. One trick I've used was to move the phone so the flashing call indicator and the caller ID were in view from my field of vision while working on my computer, and then turn the ringer off. That way I was never startled or jarred by a blaring phone, and when the red light started flashing, I could glance at it without taking my fingers off the keyboard and decide whether to answer it. Even if I didn't answer it but wanted to call the person back, I'd make a note in an open text file on my desktop to give them a ring back and return to the task at hand.

The same applies to your smartphone. If you can, keep it docked somewhere you can see it, and prune those notifications so it's not a distraction either. I like to keep the sound off while I work, but if you need audible cues, try our set of soothing alerts for more gentle notification sounds.

How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available

Add Order to Your Calendar by Scheduling Everything

You don't have to get down to the level of programming your entire day, but when we say "schedule everything," we mean schedule your working time, your lunch, your breaks, everything that you want to use your time for. The only actual "free" time on your calendar should be time when you're actually available for phone calls and meetings—time that's not allocated to something specific. Even then, as soon as it is, you should schedule it.

When I was a project manager, I had meetings every single day. Even worse, I was responsible for scheduling most of them. I learned pretty quickly that the only time I could truly tell people I was "unavailable" were the times that were blocked off on my calendar (and even then, they'd ignore it, but that's another problem entirely.) So I started scheduling my work—or times when I was head-down and wanted everyone to know I was busy. Then I started specifically scheduling my breaks so people would know when I wasn't around and when I'd be back. Sometimes those appointments would be private (but still blocked off on the calendar) but they got the message across. Be flexible though—sometimes you'll have to let someone make inroads to your work time if it's the only time everyone else can make a meeting. When you're ready to take it to the next step, consider pre-scheduling entire days as "in" or "out" based on what needs to get done that day.

Finally, let your calendar work for you instead of against you. Boomerang Calendar is a great tool that'll auto-fill your appointments with locations, attendees, and times based on your email, and lets you see—from your inbox—whether you're free at a specific time. No more toggling between your calendar and your inbox to check your schedule.

Take Care Of Yourself, Control Your Environment, and Teach Your Coworkers Manners

For many of us, our office environment is the thing we have the least control over. What you do have control over however, is your own mood, your health, and your own behavior at the office. Here's how to tackle the physical:

  • Take Care Of Yourself: Remember, you only have one you, but to your company, you're a resource. You may be valued, but if you fell over tomorrow, they'd find someone to pick up your work. Take your health seriously. Get enough sleep, get some exercise, and eat well. When you're in good mental and physical condition, you'll handle distractions better, you'll be more flexible and willing to switch tasks, and you'll be more productive. Don't underestimate the mental benefits of a good night's sleep, and the mood benefits of exercise.
  • Upgrade Your Desk or Cubicle: Even if you don't have an office with a door you can close to block out distractions, you can still tweak your desk to make them easier to handle. Face the entrance to your workspace, if you can, or at least work sidelong to it so you can see people coming. Invest in a monitor mirror or set up your phone or tablet with the camera on so you can see who's coming up behind you. Add some plants, if for no other reason than to improve your mood.
  • How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available Let Yourself Focus: I'm a huge proponent of using headphones to work to music and avoid distractions at the office, and while there's definitely a case against it, I think it's easily mitigated by being attentive to when someone wants your attention. Give yourself the time and tools to focus on the things you have to do—if that means putting your headphones on and ignoring the phone, go for it! Photo by jm3.
  • Train Your Coworkers: Remember, we're all adults here. If someone is a horrible distraction, as in they take frequent breaks and those breaks happen to be at your desk while you're trying to work, just be polite and tell them, or use it as an excuse to take your own break. If your coworkers bother you when you're busy, let them know. Don't shut them down—you don't want to hold your productivity method over someone else's head (that's the fastest way to dead-end your career.) Instead, be flexible and let your coworkers know that you're giving them tools to better work with you—they just need to look at them.
  • Make Time to Review: Finally, being always available and always on when you're at the office (or worse, when you're not) can make it really hard to step back and see the big picture. Make sure to carve out at least some time to get back in touch with what you're doing and why, as opposed to just taking busywork as it comes. I find the Weekly Review is a great way to do this, but however you do it, it's essential to keep your head above water and sift the distractions from the important work.

How to Focus and Stay Productive When You're Expected to Always Be Available

The Bottom Line: Remix Your Own Style, and Make Moderate, Incremental Changes

The biggest takeaway here is that all of these productivity methods are great, and while it's easy to get caught up in all things productivity, the only method that's going to work for you is the one that you'll actually follow, and that fits into the way your job requires you to work. Photo by mlpeixoto.

Don't be afraid to remix any or all of these methods to make your own franken-system that lets the important stuff through while giving you room to focus on your job. Test it, try it out, and if you push too hard one way, lighten up. Be flexible, and you'll find yourself less annoyed at every meeting request or instant message you get.

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The Case For Video Games as an Olympic Sport

August 8th, 2012Top Story

The Case For Video Games as an Olympic Sport

By Stephen Totilo

The Case For Video Games as an Olympic SportIf archery is an Olympic sport and shotput is an Olympic sport, consider the Olympic prospects of pulling back a virtual slingshot with one's fingertip, mentally calculating the best trajectory and then letting an Angry Bird fly and smash into some green pigs.

Video games, perhaps, should have had a place in the ongoing London Summer Games of the XXX Olympiad. Not surprisingly, I've been able to find several video game experts who agree, though all do not and some make good cases against.

If shooting is a sport…

The case for video games is that they are, for starters, popular competitions. They're competed in around the world more broadly than, say the non-Olympic sport American Football. And while they may not involve running fast, jumping high, or even that much sweating, the one-on-one virtual combat of Street Fighter or the simulated clash of futuristic armies in StarCraft require a dexterity with a fighting stick or mouse that certainly exceed the muscular dexterity needed for the non-Olympic sport of competitive eating but maybe, possibly as much as is needed for the Olympic sport of competitive shooting.

"In my eyes, there's no doubt that digital gaming will at some point be part of the Olympics," top StarCraft player Sean "Day 9" Plott told me. "Video gaming is a full medium on its own, with developers exploring new mechanics and players forming vibrant communities."

StarCraft gamer Sean Plott: "In my eyes, there's no doubt that digital gaming will at some point be part of the Olympics"

"There can be no serious question that fighting games are a superior gauge of human competitive excellence compared to, say, the Biathlon," fighting game expert Seth Killian, formerly of Capcom and now at Sony, told me. "It's easy to get sidetracked by semantic questions about what is or is not a sport, but compared against many, many existing events, fighting games are more competitive by a thousand times, more nuanced, more egalitarian, and a better overall reflection of mental and physical achievement."

The International Olympic Committee chooses which sports they will recognize as sports and, among those, chooses which will be included in an Olympic programme. They have standards, standards that have gotten tennis or rugby added and baseball and softball, most recently, dropped from competition in the Summer Games.

The official criteria, according to the IOC:

To make it onto the Olympic programme, a sport first has to be recognised: it must be administered by an International Federation which ensures that the sport's activities follow the Olympic Charter. If it is widely practised around the world and meets a number of criteria established by the IOC session, a recognised sport may be added to the Olympic programme on the recommendation of the IOC's Olympic Programme Commission.

Games have that international part down. Angry Birds is popular in more than 60 countries. Street Fighter is big in America, Japan and Europe. Counter-Strike is played competitively around the world.

Games don't have the "international federation" part down. There is no sanctioning body and, while there are leagues such as Major League Gaming the games themselves are owned by private companies, which is not a complication with, say, the game of competitive 100-meter sprinting or the game of javelin-hurling.

"Our fans are already world champion bird flingers and pig poppers," Sini Matikainen, a spokesperson for Angry Birds development studio Rovio said. "So of course we would love to see them battle it out on the global stage!"

The chess precedent

Video games seem like an odd fit for the Olympics, but for much of the last century, chess backers have lobbied to get that globally-popular game included in an Olympic programme. Chess has the international federation and the decades of high-level competition that video games lack. It doesn't, however, require as much physical skill. It's a brain game.

David Jarrett, former Chess Federation director, in 2009: "To broaden the appeal, we suggest that Mind sports are added to the [Winter Games] programme."

"Fighting games obviously have a huge mental component," Killian said, referencing the Street Fighters and Mortal Kombats of the world, "but while a game like chess is almost purely a mental endeavor, nearly every fighting game competition is decided by truly amazing physical execution as well, on par with the kind of technical excellence you see reflected in events like Olympic archery."

But get this: chess is a recognized sport by the International Olympic Committee. It achieved that status in the late 90's during the XXVIIth Olympiad (at a time when the Tug of War International Federation was granted only provisional recognition, believe it or not). Chess simply hasn't been added to an Olympic programme by the IOC, earning explicit rejection as recently as 2002, alongside bowling, water skiing, billiards, and roller sports.

In 2009, David Jarrett, then the executive director of the World Chess Federation, made a pitch at the Olympic Congress event in Copenhagen to get chess and other "mind games" added to the Winter Games:

The world Chess Federation (FIDE) feels that the Olympic winter games do not currently reflect the worldwide sporting spectrum. To broaden the appeal, we suggest that Mind sports are added to the programme. The sports of Chess, Bridge, Go and Draughts are actively practised in many countries where ice and snow sports are not in the mainstream of sporting endeavour. It would offer opportunities for individuals in africa and asia to participate in this great sporting spectacle. (Editor's note: read the rest of his pitch on pages 234-235 of this document)

The Mind Games proposal hasn't been accepted by the IOC, but if it did, the Winter Games would suddenly seem like a very good home for some video games.

Fundamental Problems

I first tried my video-games-as-Olympics idea on Frank Lantz, one of the smartest game designers I know and one of the only ones in earshot when I got this brainstorm during a recent event at New York's Hayden Planetarium (we were attending an event celebrating innovators and dreamers, sponsored by Kotaku sister site Gizmodo). I argued for Angry Birds as an Olympic sport, saying it surely had many of the qualities of archery.

Angry Birds didn't have the right density, Lantz replied. By "density," he meant the number of possible outcomes, the complexity of variables. It felt, to him, as if it would be too finite, that people would ascend some curve of mastery and then all peak, that accomplishment could stall. This wasn't necessarily true for all video games. The Chess-like StarCraft, I thought, might have enough density. But in an e-mail a couple of weeks later, he dismissed that one as well. "Olympic sports need to be highly physical," he said. "Despite the amazing degree of technical skill it requires, StarCraft isstill essentially a strategy game. I don't think it would ever make sense in the Olympics." I should note that Lantz loves StarCraft; he's no enemy of the game. "If you are interested in digital games in the Olympics," he continued, "I would look at things like Fencing, which incorporate digital sensing technology into a physical game to create a fascinating, futuristic hybrid."

The Case For Video Games as an Olympic Sport

Spy Party designer Chris Hecker: "I don't think any of the popular competitive games are very spectatable right now for non-experts."

Chris Hecker, designer of the one-on-one spy-vs-sniper one-shot competitive game Spy Party is also skeptical. "I think, even though it's not really mentioned explicitly, 'spectatability' is a huge part of what makes a sport universally interesting," he said. "I don't think any of the popular competitive games are very spectatable right now for non-experts. As some proof of this claim, Frank Lantz is writing a series on how to spectate StarCraft 2 on
Edge-Online. He's on the third article, and I still have absolutely no idea what's going on in a match, even with good commentating… In contrast, I watched a bunch of Olympics on TV this week, and it was totally clear what was going on, even on sports I'd never seen before." Most competitive video games are just played too briskly for spectators to comfortably follow what's going on and appreciate both the competition and the psychology behind it.

Even StarCraft pro Sean Plott, who does want video gaming in the Olympics, sees some big hurdles. These Games only happen every four years, he observed, but how many video games even stand that test of time? "Only two or three gaming titles have ever had players for more than 10 years, so which title can we choose from?" he said. "I think the answer lies in competitive genres instead of titles… I'd imagine that the Olympics could have an RTS, FPS, and Fighting Game category that would stay up to date as games are patched or sequels are released." That sounds… complicated.

***

The status of Chess as essentially an Olympics bridesmaid but never a bride may encourage or discourage those who would like to see video games make it as an Olympic sport. Maybe there is a road that brings Street Fighter into the same Olympic venues as that sport that has horses jumping over obstacles and the one where the person hurls the disc. Maybe a Street Fighter VII player will some day be going for gold. Or maybe, as one Kotaku reader put it, video games should just have their own Olympics.

Or maybe, just maybe, Spy Party's Hecker argues, the Olympics just aren't for video games because video games have a special destiny of their own. "The Olympics is more about human
physicality than just pure competition of any sort," he said. "Chess has been trying to get into the Olympics for a long time, but I'm guessing it won't ever happen, because a huge part of the Olympics is watching ripped young people get sweaty and do things with their bodies normal people could never do. Maybe if the overall tone of marketing and popularity around the world switches away from physical appearances and towards mental acuity it could happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I think this is okay, though, and it doesn't bother me much.

"There's room in the world for lots of different kinds of things, and eventually games will figure out where they live in the space of art and entertainment and sports. I'd rather let that happen naturally as we get more of a clue about how to design emotionally compelling games, than try to beg our way into one group's or the other's already-existing structure."

(Top photo originally by Anja Niedringhaus, AP; Xbox controller added to sprinter Usain Bolt's hand by Luke Plunkett)
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