The blog

Last Sunday’s lesson in my ongoing course in structure in Sweden’s major morning paper Dagens Nyheter was about how to work undisturbed when we need to.

In English, it translates as follows:

“How to work undisturbed

Most of us have tasks for which we need to be focused and concentrated in order to complete. We want to work with focus since we wish to produce a high-quality result, and it will be completed faster if we are not constantly interrupted. Hence allow yourself to be unavailable when you need to be left undisturbed.


Ask yourself the following: Where do you go when you need to focus? Do you go to your office, but shut the door and turn the red do-not-disturb-light on? Do you use one of the silent and bookable rooms at the office? Do you go to an empty room in another part of the building? Do you go out to a café?


What do you turn off? The cell-phone? Your e-mail? The instant message-function? Or do you perhaps close down Internet completely so that you will not be tempted to wonder off doing something irrelevant online?


Besides for these actions, what else do you do? Do you put up a nicely worded “I am busy at the moment”-sign? Do you perhaps ask a colleague to be available in your stead, and then shift when he or she needs privacy?


If you make it clear to yourself what you need to do in order to be left undisturbed it will be easier to complete the tasks which demand your full attention.”