Unplugged Experiment Part 2 - Transformed to Distraction Separation

About a month ago I had an Internet outage that forced me to change usage patterns. It also gave birth to an "Unplugged Experiment".

In the first week I did disconnect for the 1/4 of the day like I said I would, but then I changed it to having email and chat on a separate computer and heads down type of work happened on another. I know that is not exactly the same, but what did happen was a clear separation of what I considered "work" and "distraction".

The separation allowed me to not have pop up messages, sounds and flashing windows in my my working console. I believe most people can accomplish the same thing with a multiple monitor setup, but I've used a dual monitor setup for so long that I am using both monitors pretty actively.

The second computer uses its own monitor, the sound is not hooked up to the main speakers... basically a little more separated. (I will be following up with a post about my multi-computer and multi-monitor setup that I believe helps my productivity.) Everything that has a tendency to be more of a distraction is on the secondary setup. Email, chat, RSS feeds, site stats and the majority of web browsing.

This allows me to have development tools, PowerPoint, Word, image editing and anything else that requires more long term focus on my main setup. So not totally unplugged, but separated enough to be effective.