Trying to be patient with "the rambling man" while trying to get ANYTHING done? Does anyone have any tips for blocking people out?

I know exactly what you mean. I definitely like reducing the interruptions I get every day. It's hard to get anything done when everyone wants to meet in person all day long and conversations tend to ramble.

Meetings are toxic is a catch phrase by the guys at 37signals which I highly agree with: gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Meetings_... They have some good advice about trying to get your office or company to have things like "no meeting Thursdays" once a week or month. Your productivity will go through the roof that day :) My personal favorite weapon to combat this is... Email. One of the key ways I reduce those interruptions is I try and bring more and more conversations I have with people into email.

There's definitely resistance at times. Lots of folks want face to face meetings. Or they want you to come over to their location or visit where you are or meet in the middle.

Or they want to chat with you on instant messaging. One way to foster using more email is to find a good collaboration tool that focuses on email. That way your team and colleagues might likely fall in love with how well organized this group communication is, and they'll stick to the tool rather than coming to your office to "ramble" as you say.

Basecamp is a good one if you have other project management needs and plays well with email. I like tgethr.com personally (disclosure: I helped make it) if you need something real simple.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.