Told you so (hat tip, gavin).

Imagine how much more efficient Washington, DC would be if everyone ditched their black berries.

Not that I'm not guilty of this myself. Telecommuting, you live and die by email and IM. Throw in the fact that I'm a stat whore and kept constantly up to date on emurse and servers, and.. yeah. My new years resolution is to do better. Stats can be a once a day / week report, and e-mail.. Man... I wish it could be a three times a day habit. It's just impossible. Same with IM.

It took me awhile, but I broke my bloglines addiction. About six months ago, it was something fierce. Now, maybe I check every couple of days.

Has anyone ever tried those FF plugins or firewall rules that block certain sites during work hours? Any luck?

Slashdot had an article yesterday talking about misunderstood e-mails. Working virtually, we're constantly dealing with email and IM, and naturally, miscommunication can sometimes happen. Usually it just takes an added email or im to clarify things, but still something that comes up now and again.

When things are moving quickly and there is a lot on the table, I tend to be pretty direct. It's not intended to offend or come across as gruff, I just state my case, sometimes a bit thoroughly, fire and forget. Gavin and I have worked so much together, we're able to just bark out needs and concerns, and go about our business as usual. I guess it just takes enough personal face to face interaction with someone to have that level of trust, where you know its nothing personal, it's just about getting things done. It's those types of factors that make our CodeJam's so worthwhile. We're able to get a better feeling for each person and their style of interactions. It really helps build our virtual team.

The article Slashdot referenced is at Christian Science Monitor, and is a decent (if not obvious) read. They do make some suggestions on how to better avoid these types of situations. Mainly to reread things and check tone and consistency. Read it sarcastically, read it serious, read it in different lights, and see if your message is still coming across. Sounds great (if not obvious), but also sounds like it would increase the time I spend in e-mail 300%. I'd imagine a great deal of the miscommunication happens (at least in my case) when someone is short on time to begin with...