I valued the bit of chatting we did a lot. It creates a community feeling , and helps with actually getting me to work :)
But indeed, some people are distracted by the chatting. Having a “lobby” would work. Then the study room could be quiet most of the time, except when the joint hour-synced Pomodoro finishes. If you want to hang out but aren’t working, you remove yourself from the study room. These would be simple but effective guidelines, I think.
If people can turn off sounds and notifications, we probably don’t have to worry about bothering others by chatting outside of a break. So we could just have a recommendation that you are allowed to chat anytime, but chatting at times HH:25 -- HH:29 and HH:55 -- HH:59 is a Shelling point.
We can encourage this norm by saying “break” and “break over” at the specified time.
If people can turn off sounds and notifications, we probably don’t have to worry about bothering others by chatting outside of a break.
I would think so too, but at least 1 person has requested chats that chats be at a minimum, even if he turned off the sound and notifications.
Besides that, a lobby has the advantage that you can hang out without working. Here’s the failure mode I’m anticipating and trying to avoid: Let’s say this becomes big, and there’s plenty of people in the study room. Some will just hang out, and not specifically be working at that time. This creates an environment in which it feels “okay” to just hang out and not work when you’re there.
The problem with no notifications is that because you’re still in a room where interesting stuff is going on, of course you’ll check the chat history and/or join the people already chatting. (Unless you use up willpower not to, but the whole point is using less of that.)
Having a 25 min work + 5 min chat cycle seems to be a good thing though; start working because everyone else went silent is so much easier as going back to the “library” while everyone else is still talking in the lobby. If you’re working, don’t go there, that’s it.
I valued the bit of chatting we did a lot. It creates a community feeling , and helps with actually getting me to work :)
But indeed, some people are distracted by the chatting. Having a “lobby” would work. Then the study room could be quiet most of the time, except when the joint hour-synced Pomodoro finishes. If you want to hang out but aren’t working, you remove yourself from the study room.
These would be simple but effective guidelines, I think.
If people can turn off sounds and notifications, we probably don’t have to worry about bothering others by chatting outside of a break. So we could just have a recommendation that you are allowed to chat anytime, but chatting at times HH:25 -- HH:29 and HH:55 -- HH:59 is a Shelling point.
We can encourage this norm by saying “break” and “break over” at the specified time.
I would think so too, but at least 1 person has requested chats that chats be at a minimum, even if he turned off the sound and notifications.
Besides that, a lobby has the advantage that you can hang out without working. Here’s the failure mode I’m anticipating and trying to avoid: Let’s say this becomes big, and there’s plenty of people in the study room. Some will just hang out, and not specifically be working at that time. This creates an environment in which it feels “okay” to just hang out and not work when you’re there.
The problem with no notifications is that because you’re still in a room where interesting stuff is going on, of course you’ll check the chat history and/or join the people already chatting. (Unless you use up willpower not to, but the whole point is using less of that.)
Having a 25 min work + 5 min chat cycle seems to be a good thing though; start working because everyone else went silent is so much easier as going back to the “library” while everyone else is still talking in the lobby. If you’re working, don’t go there, that’s it.