Interruption Management

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Mental Exercise is Vital - Interruption Management

Society views the mental stimulation provided by grade school necessary for the normal development of children. After high school, though, we view mental exercise differently. It's widely understood that to be successful in a material sense, some sort of further education – whether collegiate or trade-oriented – is necessary, but other kinds of mental stimulation are generally seen as optional and somewhat unnecessary.

Films, books, television, and music are all designed to be as entertaining as possible – not to be as educational or as conducive to personal growth as possible. These entertainments are created for passive consumption, and that's exactly how we experience them. We are couch potatoes, not only physically, but mentally.

Low Level Thinking
We do use our minds, to some degree, just to get through life everyday, but because much of that kind of thinking takes little effort, it doesn't qualify as exercise. There's a big difference between contemplating moral issues, art criticism, or scientific discoveries, and deciding which frozen dinner you want to heat up tonight.

For many adults, job-related learning through continuing education or training is nearly the only mental exercise they get. Those of us who have dead-end jobs or careers we don't care about don't even have that source of stimulation.

The truth is, that many of us have languished mentally for too long and could use a little mental exercise.

Labels: development, growth, languish, learn, mental, stimulation, think

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Can You Control Your Spaces? - Interruption Management

When you take control of the spaces in your life, control of your time and career will follow. Controlling your spaces requires minimizing interruptions. In my book Breathing Space, I offer some suggestions for safeguarding your working environment and minimizing interruptions:

Surround yourself with everything you need to engage fully in the change process, which might involve assembling resources, people, and space, as well as ensuring that you have a quiet environment free of distractions.

Give yourself the hours or days you need to read, study, and absorb what is occurring and to make decisions about how you’ll apply new ways of doing things and new technologies to your career, business, or organization.

Go “cold turkey,” which is not recommended for most people! Suspend whatever else you’re doing and engage in whatever it takes to incorporate a new way of doing things. This is enhanced by ensuring that you’ll have no disturbances, by bringing in outside experts, and by assembling any other resources you need to succeed.

Labels: advice, breathing space, control, interruptions, links, personal space, safeguard

Tuesday, October 03, 2017

Ideas Fuel the Mind - Interruption Management

“The line that divides mind from machine is being blurred. That is the great mischief done by the data merchants, the futurologists, and those in the schools that believe that computer literacy is the educational wave of the future: They lose sight of the paramount truth that the mind thinks with ideas, not with information.”

Theodore Roszak, The Cult of Information:
The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking, 1994.

Labels: brain, ideas, mind, think, thought

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Distracted From Basic Science - Interruption Management

Makes you wonder what is distracting them from basic science:

American's Understanding of Science: From the National Science Foundation's biennial report issued on April 30, 2002 on the state of science understanding, research, and education, of 1,574 adults surveyed:

* 46% didn't know long it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. (One year.)
* 55% didn't know that lasers work by focusing light.
* 49% didn't know that antibiotics kill bacteria but not viruses.
* 52% didn't know that the earliest humans didn't live at the same time as the dinosaurs.

Also:
* 43% read the astrology charts at least occasionally in the newspaper.

What's worse, the percentages haven't much to this day. Nearly 50% believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years

Labels: distracted, information management, knowledge, science, statistics, study

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Negative News to Capture Your Attention - Interruption Management

What kind of information do you regularly receive from your favorite media sources? What type of picture do they paint about American society? Chris Michaud in a New York Post feature from 2007 wrote, "A surprising 94% of Americans say they are satisfied with their lives -- although far fewer in New York and other Eastern states think they're better off than they were five years ago, according to a new survey."

Why is this information relevant 10 year later? Perhaps certain media powers are pushing an agenda. So, ignore the New York Times and the other eastern media elite, and you might have a better chance of grasping current reality.

Labels: American society, contentment, current events, happiness, inofrmation, media, New York Times, newspaper, satisfaction

Monday, September 04, 2017

When Information Interrupts - Interruption Management

Information yields all types of trend data, be it the rise of smartphone use, or the popularity of Twitter. What we never receive is how these trends add up: where things are going.

everything hits you from the left and right with no discernible pattern and no unifying theme, our lives seem hectic, change seems unmanageable, and few people have a clue as to how to prudently proceed in their lives.

Labels: comprehension, data, future, hectic, information management, pattern, trends