Who is Going to Pay for Those 18 Minutes?
NYT article on the perils of multitasking. The money quote:
In a recent study, a group of Microsoftworkers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks,like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incominge-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messagesor browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.
There are some other good studies mentioned in the article. Worth a read -- if you've got the time.