experiences of strain and rush despite—and sometimes because of—their widespread availability and accessibility.

Productivity tools do not necessarily accelerate the pace of life, but instead offer new ways of doing things [ 4]. For example, the time and location of meetings can be coordinated at the last minute using mobile phones; high school reunions can be organized through social networking sites; and switching between tasks is easy with simple keyboard commands. As a result, people might experience an increase in multitasking, more frequent interruptions, a blurring of the work-family boundary, and a loss (or gain) of control over time, all of which may be associated with feelings of time crunch.

How might information technology be designed to combat rush, busyness, and overload? Ideas often include solutions that restore a single-tasking (as opposed to multitasking), no-interruption working style that maintains a strict work-family boundary—for example, blocking social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter while working, reading email only at certain points during the day, or presetting leisure times in one’s calendar. These solutions were designed with the mind-set that we are too busy, that we need a break from the flood of email messages, appointments, tasks, and contacts. Why? So we can focus better on what we want to achieve, and therefore be more productive and efficient. By blocking out personal time in the calendar for downtime, relaxation, or meditation, we admit that our day is overloaded. We see the personal time as imperative for recharging the batteries and getting back to a high-paced mode, rather than an overall more

relaxed and slower-paced day. This logic is based on the premise that rush, overload, and fast pace are acceptable and expected.

described long days full of activities from early morning to late night, and showed us a variety of personal productivity tools they use, many of them physical artifacts, including wall calendars, planner books, and to-do lists.

We found that productivity tools play additional roles in everyday experiences beyond simply offering efficient ways for organizing activities, events, and tasks: Individuals used their productivity tools to negotiate their life goals and everyday priorities by deciding what goes or doesn’t go into the tool; they felt socially committed by recording activities that involve others; and they gained a sense of structure and control over their lives by recording a representation of their everyday activities, tasks, and schedules.

Each participant personally customized their specific tools for their own needs and purposes. For example, retiree Kurt used a

• Figure 1. GoSlow’s suggestion screen includes a theme and image (left) and more informa-tion (right).

using Personal Productivity Tools What does being busy and overloaded mean to people, and what does it look like in their everyday practices and activities? In these day-to-day experiences, how do individuals use their personal productivity tools, and what for? What can we learn from these experiences and uses for the design of productivity tools? To answer these questions, we carried out an interview study [ 5]. Our interviewees represented a diverse set of demographics, including a stay-at-home mom, a hairdresser, a musician, a truck driver, an after-school counselor, a community college student, and a university department chair. We asked them about their daily activities and how they go about organizing them. In response, they

January + February 2012