Cheryl Proval

Every year during the holidays, the Realtor who sold us our house gives us a subscription to a general interest magazine. That is how I found myself on the mailing list of Real Simple. I had long since let go of Los Angeles, National Geographic, and Newsweek magazines in an effort to clear my plate and make my life, yes, real simple. I had mastered the art of tearing credit card solicitations in two before opening and of recycling catalogs before cracking their covers. But this magazine proved irresistable. Is not this what we all long for? This year, the Realtor gave me something that is easier to recycle without reading, and I am glad to save the time I spent thumbing through pages of perfectly organized and de-cluttered lives. But I continue to yearn for simplicity.

In reviewing the comments of the PACS super users in the article, "Viewing Software: 8 Users Look Through the Glass," simplicity is also on the minds of radiologists who are operating in an environment that is increasingly electronic and technology-based. They want to see only what they need to see when they need to see it. Distracting icons, sounds, and logos are unwanted. Yet users require more and more functionality from their viewing software programs, challenging vendors to provide radiologists with the fully loaded, elegant desktop.

Fortunately for radiologists (and all of the rest of us monitor-huggers), a science is emerging around the electronic desktop that could provide some relief: interruption science. According to a story that appeared last year in the The New York Times Magazine, "Meet the Life Hackers," the average 21st-century office worker spends only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted to do something else, usually something critical to their job performance. And each time a worker is distracted from a task, it would take a total of 25 minutes to return to that task. Mary Czerwinski, a leading expert in the field, was strolling around the Microsoft campus when she discovered that some workers had set up multiple screens, with one to the right for e-mail, a Web browser on the screen to the left, and a screen at the center for the task at hand. The workers insisted this environment made them feel calm. Czerwinski subsequently set up an experiment to see if screen space improved cognition. Fifteen volunteers performed a set of tasks on a 15-inch screen and then a similar set of tasks on a 42-inch screen. The subjects completed the task 10% faster on the bigger screen, and some completed the task as much as 44% more quickly.

Before you go out and buy a 42-inch plasma screen for your reading room, consider these tips culled from the article:

1. Create an extra brain by opening a single document in a word processing program into which can be dumped everything you need to remember.
2. As soon as you are interrupted, you must deal with it within 2 minutes or add the current task to the top of your to-do list.
3. Set your e-mail program to bother you only once an hour (if possible).

Further ideas can be found at www.43folders.com.

Happy hunting, fellow life hackers.

Cheryl Proval