Breaking the Email Addiction

Read this very interesting article at Harvard Business Review, written by Tony Shwartz. The original can be found here...

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Do you wake up in the morning and bring your laptop into bed with you, or check it before you brush your teeth?

Do you check email while you're driving, even though you're four times as likely to have an accident when you do?

Are you answering email on your iPhone or Blackberry when you walk between meetings, or on your way to the parking lot?

Do you keep answering while you're sitting in your car in your driveway or garage when you get home?

Do you bring your laptop back into bed with you at night, and make one final check before you turn out the lights?

Last month my company, The Energy Project, posted a poll on the Huffington Post asking people about their experience in the workplace. One of the questions was about email.

Out of 1200 respondents, some 60 percent said they spend less than two waking hours a day completely disconnected from email. Twenty percent spend less than a half hour disconnected. Email has become our intravenous feeding tube.

I gave a talk recently at a Fortune 100 company about the value of focusing on one thing at a time and the attentional costs of constant interruptions. When I was done, an articulate and ingenuous young man who worked in finance came up to me. "I believe everything you said," he said, "but I can't do it. If I get an email, I have to look at it."

"Have you considered just turning it off at certain times during the day?" I asked.

"I don't think I can," he replied. "As soon as I turn it off, I'd start obsessing about what I'm missing."

It isn't overload we're battling anymore, it's addiction — to action, and information, and connection, but above all to instant gratification.

In the late 1960s, the psychologist Walter Mischel began conducting his famous "marshmallow" experiment. He placed a marshmallow in front of a succession of four-year-olds. Mischel told them they were free to eat the marshmallow simply by ringing a bell after he'd left the room. However, if they were able to wait untill he returned, he told them they could have two marshmallows.

Seventy percent of the children gave up in less than a minute. Only thirty percent were able to wait 15 minutes.

Mischel termed marshmallows a "hot stimulus" — meaning highly seductive — not unlike the ping of an email, or a text.

We're pulled to anything that provides instant gratification, even when we know we'd get a bigger reward for delaying. We're also quick to respond to any excuse to stop working on something that is difficult and requires high concentration.

What Mischel discovered is that the low delayers quickly burned down their limited reservoir of will and discipline by staring directly (and longingly) at the marshmallow.

The high delayers found something else entirely to focus on. They never looked at the marshmallow.

Mischel came to call this skill "strategic allocation of attention." It's a capacity many of us have lost when it comes to the Pavlovian pull of email.

Years later, when Mischel redid the experiment with a new group of 4-year-olds, he decided to teach the poor delayers among them the techniques of the high delayers — very simple ways to redirect their attention away from the marshmallow. Kids who hadn't been able to wait more than a minute rapidly learned to hold out for a full 15 minutes.

We, too, can strategically train our attention. When it comes to email and the Internet, it's critical that we do so to give ourselves more time to think more reflectively, creatively, and deeply in an increasingly complex world.

If you're truly tethered to your email, start small. Choose a specific time each day to turn off your email for a half hour, or an hour, and focus on something that requires your full attention. Then begin adding other times as your focus gets stronger. 

Here's one way to start. Take back your lunch. I wrote about this movement on this site last week. Get up from your computer step outside and leave your iPhone or your Blackberry behind. Instead, use the time to quiet your mind, or to think through a difficult problem, or to truly connect with a friend, or a colleague. You'll be building much needed renewal into your day, and you'll also be effectively retraining your attention.

Take back your lunch, and take back your attention. They're two first steps in taking back your life.

What Women Want?

Whether they give or refuse, it delights women just the same to have been asked.

~Ovid

The chief excitement in a woman's life is spotting women who are fatter than she is.

 ~Helen Rowland

What women want? That is a question that philosophers, theologists and what not have been pondering over since the dawn of the life. I am sure even Adam must have faced the same problem when dealing with Eve. How he overcome that problem, and I am glad that he did or else there wouldn’t have been such a contest for the lack of participants and organizers, is something that we will probably never know.

At different points, we hear different responses to what women want.
•    An email forward that I got some time back narrated the story of how an old witch married a young man and gave him two choices: a) Should she remain beautiful in the day and become a hag at night; or b) Should she remain hag in the day and become beautiful at night? The young man told the witch the witch that she can chose the option herself. To which the witch decided to remain beautiful ever because what she wanted, and by corollary all women want, is to be in charge of their own destiny.
•    Yet another forward lists down some things that women want from men and from society in general including Respect; some Chivalry; conversation and not just talking and listening; tactfully dealing with whatever issue is bothering them and the works.
•    Yet another article on net states that they just want to sort out other’s lives. Plain. Kapish.


A Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt starrer “What Women want?” in 2000 discussed the same issue. The protagonist wants to know what women want for a cosmetic Market Research and ends up with an ability to hear women’s thoughts and makes the life better for him. Wish it was that easy!

I personally feel that despite all the ruckus and ponderings and thought processes going on about what women want, despite the various researched and market studies and questionnaires and surveys, the answer is pretty simple.

Even women themselves don’t know what they want!

Even women concede this point. At MY Sun's Woman forum, user ‘lovelyrita’ confessed that guys might find it difficult to figure out the female mind. She said: "How can men be expected to know what women want when women don't know what they want? Some women are their own worst enemies!"

But imagine… what if the women are asking themselves the question “What do men want?” Perhaps they are every bit as confused about opposite sex as we are. And they try to act according to what they think that we want. And men, mistakenly, take that as what women really want and try to base our actions on that.

Incidentally, I feel that what a woman wants is:

• A successful career for their children
• For their husband to appreciate their work and the food they cook, irrespective of how good or bad either may be
• For their bosses to appreciate their talent
• To be able to spend some free time as and how they want
• Respect from those that she respects

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This is in response to What Women Want contest at BlogAdda.

Where is the honour in killing?

 Of lately, we have been hearing a lot about honour killing.

Some recent cases:

1. The young couple Monica and Kuldeep along with Monica's cousin Shobha were brutally murdered in the Ashok Vihar neighbourhood on 21st June. (Source)
2. On 20th June, Monika (18) and her lover Rinku (19), both from Jat families, were brutally killed for honour at Nimriwali village, near Bhiwani. The father of the girl, her brother, uncle and cousins are suspected to be behind the crime and are absconding. (Source)
3. Nirupama Pathak, a 22-year-old journalist was found dead in the last week of April at her family home in Jharkhand. The post-mortem report says she was murdered by smothering and that she was 10-12 weeks pregnant. Her only fault was that she fell in love with a boy from another caste. (Source)

These are but a scratch on the surface of the many that don’t even get reported because the parents on both sides are opposed to the marriage and end up covering the matter from police. In some cases, the police are also involved to “teach the young ones a lesson”.

According to 2007 estimates of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the annual worldwide total of honor-killing victims may be as high as 5,000.

Its not that this honour killing is something unique to India only. Worldwide cases have been reported on this matter. Most of them, however, have been reported in Islamic countries where the women are the main victims of such brutality. In India, democratic as we are, they don’t discriminate between the men and women and kill them both and any of the accomplices. Just like the “mob never forgets”, even these goons never forget how their honour was tarnished four years ago when their daughter married outside their caste, they will bid their time until the perfect opportunity when they kill them all.

And then the nerve of these people trying to justify the killings. The parents of the girl in the latest case on 20th June, are openly supporting the killers saying that they haven’t done anything wrong.

And what is our government doing on all this? Just waiting and watching, letting the phase pass; till the time the entire case cools down so that whatever decision they take does not affect their vote bank politics. Incidentally Law Minister M Veerappa Moily claims that Home Ministry has prepared a Bill aimed at "putting an end" to such crimes and which will be "a tight law to put an end to such crimes".

You know what I think about this?

Nobody has a right to kill anyone. Sometimes you may wish that killing was legalized just so that you can get even with that prick who keeps on bugging you. But you still don’t have right to kill someone. Who are these people to decide if the girl/boy deserve to die if they married outside their caste?

PS: If this trend continues, people might have to stop haggling over prices with various vendors lest the vendor takes an offence of the haggling and decides to “teach someone a lesson”.

Images courtesy the “honourable” gentlemen who killed those poor souls
(Sourced from blogs.reuters.com, ibnlive.in.com, images.sodahead.com and epaper.hindustantimes.com)  

Additional feed:
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/how-govt-plans-to-fight-honour-killings-33467
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/honour-killing-victims-family-justifies-murder/125138-3.html?from=tn

Indiblog Rank

Got my Indiblog rank today... was pleasantly surprised with a healthy 73... They say that the top blogs get a rank between 80-90... So I guess 73 isn't that bad.

A step back on the evolution ladder

 

Comparing a man from Neolithic age to a modern day average man, you can see several things different, or which were lacking in that person; which can be broadly counted as:

1. An inclined, slouched posture
2. Lack of knowledge
3. Inability to strings two words together
4. Decreased comprehensive ability 
5. Lower cognitive skills
6. A gobbled up language
7. Reluctance (sometimes due to lack) to wear proper clothes, in effect revealing more than hiding
8. No concept of social communication with others except their close group

Now looking at the younger generation, that is to say people in the tweens and teens of nowadays; you can immediately notice several things:

1.  I am sure all of us have seen the evolution cycle at some point of time. And if you are a human then you must have noticed how the teenagers walk with a continuous slouch. Now, I am sure some of it must be due to the heavy bags which they were make to carry when they were young (it was easy back then… now any effort to make them do anything is met with a reproaching glare and a weeklong sulk) but that’s something Kapil Sibal has taken care of now by ensuring that no one fails and hence no need to study. Ergo no need for heavy bags. But that still doesn’t solve the problem of slouching and as a result they walk as if they have de-evolved

2.   They are dumb. No talking about the JEE and PMT cracking dudes and dudettes, the average teen is dumb and other than bookish or freaky, western knowledge; doesn’t have an iota of practical gyaan.

3.  Trying to talk to them is like talking to a Gorilla or Chimpanzee, partly because they ALWAYS have earphones plugged and partly because they can’t speak in proper Hindi or English. They are only comfortable with Hinglish and that too with words with not more than two syllables. That is to say apart from their “ummm”s and “hmmm”s and “like”s and “basically”s.

4.  Another aspect of talking to these people is getting them understand what you are saying, preferably after a couple of efforts only and not more, and not getting frustrated enough to either strangle yourself or wishing for a horrible explosion to wipe out their existence.

5.  While the computing technology has advanced to the level where multi tasking is not a new concept but something that everyone takes for granted, the tweens have once again gone a step backwards and adopted an “only one task at a time” framework and come hell or high water, you cannot take them off it or watch them sulk for an eternity. Probably doing two things at a time might prove to be too strenuous a task for the fragile empty showcase that their tiny brain is.

6.  Have you ever had a chance to read a message from them? Count yourself fortunate if you haven’t; because the way they write English makes you glad that they were not present when the language was being finalized as it would have been a major pain to read through it all. But why the hell do they have to write complete stories in this f****d up language? Imagine, if we had Ved Vyasa write the Vedas and Upanishads in SMSese. That would have been something to be afraid of.

7.  Looking at the tweens, even the spawns of some of the more effluent families, the first thing that you may think is what the hell is he wearing? Torn jeans, faded Che Guera shirts which barely cover their asses (literally so) and both of which (shirts and jeans and not the third thing mentioned above) are ten sizes bigger than what they should be wearing. Net Result: A Rhinoceros wearing Elephant skin and being under the impression that it is looking better than a peacock in their full plumage in the rains.

8.  To put it in nut shell, they don’t know how to be socially adaptable. Very rarely have I found a teenager who is comfortable in a social kind of setting unless it involves people in their own age group. And forget them helping you out if you have had a busy day and suddenly a dozen guests come over to your place. They will just plug in their earphones and ignore everyone else. In that aspect, they are worth two locked doors and a trick staircase (meaning worse than useless and with substantial potential for being more harmful than helpful) (always wanted to use it since I read it in HP).

No I am no child psychologist or a historian by any means, but even the least observant reader may be able to notice how the defining characteristics in the two “species” are similar. This could only mean one thing… We are moving back the evolution ladder!

Your views please!

Image Courtesy: www.working-well.org and http://www.partofmyevolution.com