Do you believe that the workplace is structured for interruptions  — meetings all day, your manager knocking on your door, phones ringing all the time? Do you believe that real work only takes place outside of working hours or on the weekends? If you feel this way about Corporate America, you're not alone.

Jason Fried, author of Rework, has a radical theory that we need long hours of uninterrupted time to be able to get work done and to work effectively, but that M&Ms (not the chocolate kind) disrupt our day — Managers & Meetings — and this is why we can't work at work.

According to Fried, companies expect employees to do great work at the office. But when you ask people where they go to get something done, you get one of three answers:

1. A place (porch, kitchen, coffee shop)
2. A moving object (plane, train, bus)
3. A time (early in the morning, late at night, or on the weekend)

Why is this? These three events have one thing in common — no managers, no meetings.

At the office you have shreds of time — you are interrupted by your manager and pulled from what you are doing. Next thing you know, it's lunch time. After lunch, someone pulls you aside to do something. Next thing you know, it's 5 pm.

Very few people have had 8 hours of uninterrupted time at the office. So we work from home, or go in to the office very early in the morning, or late at night after everyone's left, or on the weekends, or on a plane, because then there are no distractions.

Fried's theory is that sleep and work are alike in that they are both stage-based events. Just as there are five stages of sleep, so too are there stages of work. You don't just go straight to sleep; you go towards sleep. You don't just go straight to work either. There are earlier stages to go through before you get to the deep one. If you get interrupted, you don't pick up where you left off. You need to start all over again, going through stages.

But some managers don't want their employees working at home because they fear they will be watching TV instead of working. But TV is a voluntary distraction; you decide when you become distracted and at a time of your choosing. Ditto for Facebook, which is really a modern day smoke break. The real problem, according to Fried, is the M&Ms - managers and meetings.

The manager's job is to make sure that you are working. That's an interruption, and they often interrupt at the wrong time. Meetings are toxic and disruptive.

Managers can make the office a better place for people to work. The remedy? Fried gives three provocative suggestions:

1. Just as we have Casual Fridays, why not have No Talk Thursdays where no one is allowed to talk to each other? Four hours of uninterrupted work time is the best gift you can give someone at work. It's better than a new computer.

2. Switch from active communication to passive communication. Use e-mail and instant messaging instead of knocking on someone's door. You can hide or quit instant messaging and come back to it later. You can't hide or quit your manager.

3. If you have a meeting scheduled, cancel it. Erase it from your memory. Everything will be just fine.

Let's hear from you! Do you agree with Fried's reasons why work never gets done at the office and his suggestions for giving people more time? Do share your thoughts.