Five Ways to Get IM Under Control
July 5th, 2007 (10:00am) Mike Gunderloy 15 CommentsTweet This
Part of being a web worker is getting some actual work done once in a while. Whether it’s writing a proposal, creating a web site, banging out code, or auditing financials, web work tends to require concentration. But the same tools that help us be connected from anywhere also act to interrupt and destroy this concentration if we’re not careful. Take instant messaging, which is a wonderful tool for pulling together a geographically-dispersed team. As you grow to depend more on IM, you’ll likely also find that random interruptions from well-meaning friends and colleagues pop up on your screen with increasing frequency, pulling you out of the zone and making it tough to get your work done. Short of pulling the plug entirely, what can you do to tame your IM usage? Here are some ideas:
Keep your status message up to date: If you log in, set your status to “available,” and leave it there all day, no one will ever know that you’re busy. If you tell folks that you’re in a meeting or heads-down to make a deadline, the sensible ones will leave you alone.
Use a multi-protocol client: Without a unified standard for IM, most of us accumulate contacts and accounts across multiple networks, leading to a tremendous clutter of windows and icons. The solution is to run a consolidated client like Adium for the Mac, Trillian or Miranda for Windows, or Meebo online. As a bonus, these applications will let you merge chats into a single tabbed window so they don’t take up your entire screen. Beware the time sink of “skinning” and customizing things forever, though.
Declare IM “office hours”: Do you really need to be on IM every waking hour? If not, pick some regular and consistent times that you can be reachable (perhaps 9-11AM and 3-4PM, for example), and turn the client off the rest of the time. Let your business contacts know that this is when they can IM you. They’ve got your e-mail and phone information for emergencies outside of office hours, right?
Trim the troublemakers: Just as you’d drop an e-mail newsletter or an RSS feed that wasn’t adding any value to your life, you should remove any IM contact who ends up being nothing but an interruption. Have someone on your list who was a contact for one past project, but now just pings you daily with updates about their cat’s dietary habits? It is not a crime to delete them from your contact list. There are other places where bored and lonely people can hang out.
Move things to other media: Conversations that start out on IM don’t have to stay there. Sometimes what looks like a quick question that can be answered by two people working together turns out to be a knotty problem that will require group input. In that case, it’s perfectly all right to end the IM conversation with “Bill, we’re going to need to get a conference call going with Mary and Anne on this – I’ll send an e-mail out right now to schedule it.” Don’t be afraid to shift things to phone to settle them more quickly, or to e-mail to make them asynchronous.
Got your own tips for taming the IM monster? Add them below!
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Just because you remove a “troublemaker” from your buddy list doesn’t mean that they won’t continue to contact you during the day. That’s just unrealistic. You need to be clear with people about the fact that when you’re at work you need to work. If that doesn’t work, there’s no reason why you can’t make yourself invisible to them. Some clients/networks will allow you to do that instead of completely removing a contact.
Having different names for a variety of uses really helps organize things as well too. It also let’s you have different degrees of availability. It’s easily managed through a client like Adium or Trillian.
Don’t be afraid to use inivisible mode when you need it.
If you have to remove a pest from your contact list, most IM programs also allow you to block that person at the same time to stop them from getting back in touch.
I’ve found that it helps to maintain two IM networks – a personal one and a business one. Keep the personal one switched off during business hours and vice-versa. If you keep your personal contacts completely separate and unconnected to your business contacts then it minimises the chance that you’ll be interrupted by an unwanted message.
Another good tip is to use both Google Talk and GMail… you can keep your instant message status up to date through your email, and it has a really simple interface. It’s also easy to block people temporarily or permanantly. I’ve also found out how to consolidate and keep my contacts from other IM clients up to date and at hand using Google Talk.
Instead of having one account that you’re only available on during certain hours set up multiple accounts for yourself for the different groups of people you want to be accessible to at different times. Use one for people you want to be available to at all times (spouse, children, etc) another for business contacts you want to be available to part of the time without them eating up your whole day, and another account for personal contacts who you don’t want bothering you at all during business hours. Then either log off or set your status appropriately on the accounts you don’t want to be available on at that time. And don’t forget to add yourself to your buddy list so you have a visual reminder of what status you’re appearing to others as.
Great ideas. I will certainly be recommending my readers to read this article.
I use IM to communicate with business associates, friends and family. So rather than just having “Business Hours” whereby I can be connected, I have three advertised times for being available on IM: Business Hours where customers and partners can contact me, Friend Hours which are times I allocate to talk to friends, and family hours where I am available for family.
Another multi-protocol client:
Pidgin (was GAIM) – http://pidgin.im/pidgin/home/
Adium and Pidgin are fairly closely related.
Pidgin is *nix and Windows.
Using a multi-protocol client was the most beneficial for me at work.
I agree with Dan. Pidgin is awesome.
Also, if you’re an MSN Live Messenger user, turn off the video advertisements on the bottom of your buddy list. I was suckered in to watching MSNBC videos nearly daily!
The best is, if you can, to use only and encourage the use of open standards, in order to keep the internet open. Jabber/XMPP is the only open standard over there, and it is normalizd by the IETF, the organization that normalized TCP/IP, HTTP? SMTP, etc.
Use Jabber !