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Article

A diary study of task switching and interruptions

Authors:

Mary Czerwinski,

Susan WilhiteAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '04: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 175 - 182

https://doi.org/10.1145/985692.985715

Published: 25 April 2004 Publication History

Abstract

We report on a diary study of the activities of information workers aimed at characterizing how people interleave multiple tasks amidst interruptions. The week-long study revealed the type and complexity of activities performed, the nature of the interruptions experienced, and the difficulty of shifting among numerous tasks. We present key findings from the diary study and discuss implications of the findings. Finally, we describe promising directions in the design of software tools for task management, motivated by the findings.

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Index Terms

A diary study of task switching and interruptions
1. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '04: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2004

742 pages

ISBN:1581137028

DOI:10.1145/985692

Conference Chairs:
Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson
Kinoma
,
Manfred Tscheligi
CURE, Austria

Copyright © 2004 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 25 April 2004

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https://doi.org/10.3390/bdcc8100124
Kreamer LRogelberg S(2024)Starting Your Day with Dread or Excitement? The Effects of Meeting Scheduling Cadences on Anticipated Daily OutcomesGroup & Organization Management10.1177/10596011231223263Online publication date: 7-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011231223263
Carter EVichivanives PXing RHiatt LRosenthal S(2024)Perceptions of a Robot That Interleaves Tasks for Multiple UsersACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/366348613:4(1-20)Online publication date: 23-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3663486
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