FlowLight Improves Productivity

Guest: Thomas Fritz, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of British Columbia Cubicle workers everywhere can relate to the frustration of having someone pop in and interrupt when you’re deep into the flow of a project. To avoid that, many people might try block-out techniques like wearing headphones most of the day to send the message, “don’t interrupt, I’m focusing.”   But University of British Columbia computer science professor Thomas Fritz has a different solution. It’s a traffic light, basically. When it’s green, coworkers know you’re okay to interrupt. When it’s red—or the more serious pulsing red—they know to stay away. And you don’t set the light yourself—it actually tracks your computer activity and sets itself based on that.