Quotessence
Home / Topics / Interruptions Quotes

Interruptions Quotes

Browse 184 quotes about Interruptions.

Related topics

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldMayLongWritingWayFactsHoursWantConstantNeedsSometimes

Interruptions Quotes

“Tom Demarco, a principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild team of consultants ... and his colleague Timothy Lister devised a study called the Coding War Games. The purpose of the games was to identify the characteristics of the best and worst computer programmers; more than six hundred developers from ninety-two different companies participated. Each designed, coded, and tested a program, working in his normal office space during business hours. Each participant was also assigned a partner from the same company. The partners worked separately, however, without any communication, a feature of the games that turned out to be critical. When the results came in, they revealed an enormous performance gap. The best outperformed the worst by a 10:1 ratio. The top programmers were also about 2.5 times better than the median. When DeMarco and Lister tried to figure out what accounted for this astonishing range, the factors that you'd think would matter — such as years of experience, salary, even the time spent completing the work — had little correlation to outcome. Programmers with 10 years' experience did no better than those with two years. The half who performed above the median earned less than 10 percent more than the half below — even though they were almost twice as good. The programmers who turned in "zero-defect" work took slightly less, not more, time to complete the exercise than those who made mistakes. It was a mystery with one intriguing clue: programmers from the same companies performed at more or less the same level, even though they hadn't worked together. That's because top performers overwhelmingly worked for companies that gave their workers the most privacy, personal space, control over their physical environments, and freedom from interruption. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said that their workspace was acceptably private, compared to only 19 percent of the worst performers; 76 percent of the worst performers but only 38 percent of the top performers said that people often interrupted them needlessly.”

ProgrammingPerformanceInterruptionsCodingWorkspaces
Book:Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Create image

“When Jesus was interrupted, He started where He was and helped those in need who were nearest to Him. There is always another mission “out there”—the next cause, the next city, or the next country that seems to be the most important mission we could pursue. Jesus illustrates that our greatest mission is often the person in front of us.”

JesusInterruptionsMeeting Needs
Book:Faith Acts: A Provocative Call to Live What You Believe
Create image

“Distractions are everywhere. And with the always-on technologies of today, they take a heavy toll on productivity. One study found that office distractions eat an average 2.1 hours a day. Another study, published in October 2005, found that employees spent an average of 11 minutes on a project before being distracted. After an interruption it takes them 25 minutes to return to the original task, if they do at all.”

IfsTodayFoundHoursTechnologyStudyMinutesReturnOfficeProjectsTasksOriginalsAverageHeavyProductivityEmployeeDistractionDistractedOctoberTollsInterruptions
Author:David Rock
Create image

“The arts do live continuously, and they live literally by faith; their names and their shapes and their uses and their basic meanings survive unchanged in all that matters through times of interruption, diminishment, neglect; they outlive governments and creeds and the societies, even the very civilization that produced them. They cannot be destroyed altogether because they represent the substance of faith and the only reality. They are what we find again when the ruins are cleared away.”

ArtMatterUseRealityGovernmentNamesCivilizationShapesDestroyedRuinsSubstanceNeglectCreedsRough TimesInterruptions
Author:Katherine Anne Porter
Create image

“The monotony of a long heroic poem may often be pleasantly relieved by judicious interruptions in the perfect successions of rhymes, just as the metre may sometimes be adorned with occasional triplets and Alexandrines.”

MayLongSometimesPerfectHeroicRhymeOccasionalSuccessionRelievedOften IsInterruptionsMonotonyTriplet
Book:H.P. Lovecraft: The Ultimate Collection (160 Works Including Early Writings, Fiction, Collaborations, Poetry, Essays & Bonus Audiobook Links)
Create image

“I am furious at all the letters to answer, when all I want to do is think and write poems. ... I long for open time, with no obligations except toward the inner world and what is going on there.”

ThinkingWorldWantWritingLongAnswersLettersObligationFuriousInterruptionsInner World
Book:The Journals of May Sarton Volume One: Journal of a Solitude, Plant Dreaming Deep, and Recovering
Create image

“Nevertheless, hateful as saying 'No' always is to an imaginative person, and certain as the offence may be that it will cause to individuals whose own work does not require isolated effort, the writer who is engaged on a book must learn to say it. He must say it consistently to all interrupters; to the numerous callers and correspondents who want him to speak, open bazaars, see them for 'only' ten minutes, attend literary parties, put people up, or read, correct and find publishers for semi-literate manuscripts by his personal friends.”

PeopleWantMayPersonsDoeBookCertainIndividualSpeakCausesPartyEffortMinutesTenEngagedIsolatedConsistentlyNeverthelessPublishersImaginativeHatefulSaying NoManuscriptsWant HimOffenceInterruptionsBazaars
Author:Vera Brittain
Create image

“Recollect that to a woman who gets her living by her pen, 'time is money,' as it is to an artist. Therefore, encroaching on her time is lessening her income. And yet how often is this done (either heedlessly or selfishly) by persons professing to be her friends, and who are habitually in the practice of interrupting her in her writing hours.”

WritingPersonsDoneArtistHoursPracticeIncomePensOften IsInterruptionsInterruptingTime Is Money
Book:Selections from Eliza Leslie
Create image

“Life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments. The greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease, as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruption.”

LifeWellsActionPleasureGreaterDutyPerformancesSeriesIllObstaclesEaseOur TimeEnjoymentStreamsElegantPettyInconvenienceInterruptionsRemovalTime PassesComplianceProcurement
Book:The beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: consisting of maxims and observations, moral, critical, and miscellaneous: to which are now added biographical anecdotes of the doctor, selected from the works of Mrs. Piozzi;--his Life, recently published by Mr. Boswell, and other authentic testimonies; also his will, and the sermon he wrote for the late Doctor Dodd
Create image

“This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative; but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a battle.”

LawCoursesHistoryEventsObjectsReaderBattleImportanceCourtCuriosityVarietyMannersNarrativeIntrigueRoman EmpireTransientInterruptionsInsensible
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Create image

“Interruption, incoherence, surprise are the ordinary conditions of our life. They have even become real needs for many people, whose minds are no longer fed by anything but sudden changes and constantly renewed stimuli. We can no longer bear anything that lasts. We no longer know how to make boredom bear fruit. So the whole question comes down to this: can the human mind master what the human mind has made?”

PeopleKnowsNeedsMindHumansMadeRealWholeLastsKnow HowOur LivesConditionsMastersBearsOrdinarySurpriseFruitBoredomFedsHuman MindStimulusInterruptionsIncoherenceSudden Change
Author:Paul Valery
Create image

“Our system works. Over time, people will live better and better. We have a system that unleashes human potential, and now China has a system that unleashes human potential. We will have interruptions. We overshoot and undershoot sometimes, but your kids and grandkids will live better than you. Over time, we move ahead at a pretty damn rapid rate.”

PeopleHumansSometimesKidsMovingRateInvestingChinaDamnRapidsBetter Than YouInterruptionsHuman PotentialGrandkidsMoving Ahead
Author:Warren Buffett
Create image