Tag: leisure

Analogue Week

March 24th, 2008 · · Society No comments - Tags: , ,

Do you ever feel like you are trying to deal with too much information? Like there is too much going on your head? That you can’t process everything that’s going on?

I felt like that at the start of last week. Business has picked up strongly after a post-honeymoon lull, and I’ve gained some new clients, which means a steep learning curve and some careful juggling of priorities. This all coincided with a bit of financial stress and on top of that my 30th birthday is coming up, and though I haven’t done any real planning yet, it has been at the back of my mind.

So all in all I was a bit stressed. I don’t get stressed very often. I seem to have some pretty decent coping mechanisms, centred around simply giving my brain time to process everything that’s going on. But this requires letting my brain freewheel – something I had stopped doing.

It’s easy to do. There are so many ways to occupy your eyes and ears, particularly in a house full of gadgets. But all the time you are watching, listening, playing, browsing or typing, your brain is trying to absorb information rather than process what is already there. (Not at all scientific I’m afraid but it seems to be true for me).

My wife suggested cutting back on screen time – getting away from TVs, laptops, PCs and smartphones and doing something different. Ditching them altogether wouldn’t have helped my financial stress because I then couldn’t work, but it was an important suggestion and what kicked off the idea of my Analogue Week.

I limited ‘screen time’ to working hours. I cut out the radio – especially anything with too much talking. I stopped playing games on my phone any time I had a few spare seconds. Instead I read a book, listened to CDs (strictly digital but as analogue as you can get in my house), went out for dinner and to the theatre, caught up on some outstanding DIY, and most importantly of all, just did nothing.

For example, while waiting at the train station, I just looked around, enjoyed the brief moments of sunshine and did a bit of people watching (always entertaining). While driving for long periods I just kept the radio off and focused on the surroundings (and the road of course).

The result is that I actually addressed the issues that were stressing me out rather than trying to distract my brain from dealing with them. I feel a lot calmer as a result, and also a lot more productive.

Not everyone is quite as addicted to their screens as I am, but I think it could be valuable to allocate some time each day, week, month or quarter to getting away from technology and the huge volumes of information it brings. To let your brain process everything that’s going on and let it catch up.

We seem to have days and weeks allocated to just about every other issue. Why not an annual Analogue Week?

This Modern Life

June 24th, 2007 · · Society, Technology No comments - Tags: , , , ,

The last few weeks have been hectic to say the least. So much so that my blog posting has been severely restricted. Like many people today, I split my time between a number of different job roles and clients, meaning I am constantly having to juggle priorities to ensure I meet many different expectations – with work delivered both to the right standard and within a given deadline. Unfortunately the volume of work and life commitments recently has meant that something had to suffer – namely this blog. The situation should improve somewhat over the next month and I’d like to get back in to the rhythm of posting regularly.

Funnily enough, the Beeb called me up last week and asked me to comment on the role that technology plays in the modern life. I’m appearing on the BBC Radio Manchester breakfast show tomorrow morning alongside a self-confessed Luddite to talk about the gadgets that I can’t live without. It got me thinking about whether the preponderance of communications technologies on which we all (except the Luddites) rely is responsible for the increased pace of life, or whether it just helps us all to cope with a trend that was happening anyway.

I think the answer comes down to the individual. For me, having a laptop with broadband access, means that I can work from my bed if I want to, as I am now. Admittedly I am working on a Sunday, but that is my choice and it is enabled by the fact that the tools of my work are so portable.

By contrast, imagine a junior executive in a full-time office role. The Blackberry with which he or she might be equipped isn’t a chosen tool to allow them to work more flexibly. Rather it is a work-assigned tether to the office, eating in to their free time.

In either case though, the technology is a fundamental enabler of the knowledge economy in which we all exist today. Though you can’t disentangle the development of one from the other, I for one am happy to working in an economy where I can choose when to work, and can make a living from selling my creativity of thought. Especially when I get to be creative in such a comfy environment.