> It's been estimated that unnecessary interruptions, mainly facilitated by technology, cost U.S. businesses $650,000,000,000 year in lost employee time. Lost

> It's been estimated that unnecessary interruptions, mainly facilitated by technology, cost U.S. businesses $650,000,000,000 year in lost employee time. Lost me right there...the report it links to is even worse. The entire concept of linking the productivity of a "knowledge-worker" to dollars and hours is wrong-headed and incredibly prevalent in the IT field. You as an employer may be paying someone X dollars an hour but that's not what you are paying them for. The insights critical to writing great software, developing new analysis techniques, simplifying the network structure, what have you, cannot be codified in these terms. And just because your hands are at the keyboard doesn't mean you are doing anything, and sometimes being off work focused on something else brings a breakthrough.