Unplugging All Year Round

This Friday night marks the beginning of the second annual National Day of Unplugging, but you needn't wait for the annual event to disconnect from your devices.  Here are some ways to unplug on the regular: every month, every week, or even several times a day.  (For more on the why of unplugging, see my piece on the subject from last year.) Several times a day: Many of us engage with technology during the mindless, routine activities of daily life.  For a break from this, define contexts in which you will consciously disconnect from your devices.  For example, commit to not being on your phone when you are walking to the subway or driving in your car. Or to not texting while eating.  Instead, notice your surroundings, the road in front of you, or the taste of what you are eating in a more mindful way.

Daily: There are several ways to do this.  Start your day unplugged by giving yourself a buffer of 20, 30, or 60 minutes before checking in with technology -- greeting the day before you greet your iPhone.  During the day, block out a no-technology hour or two -- perhaps the first couple of hours after you get home from work, to mark that transition into home-mode.  Or, give yourself a daily technology cut-off time, and put yourself to bed with a book rather than Twitter.

Weekly: Try a regular technology break on the weekends.  Try a six hour chunk without internet on a Saturday and see how clean your house gets, and how far your mind can wander away from your work.  The National Day of Unplugging is rooted in the Jewish tradition of Shabbat, which is another way frame a weekly unplugging -- 24 hours worth of disconnection from technology and reconnection with home, family, self and spririt.

Monthly: Can you go one day, or one weekend a month without technology?  I do this on occasion and think of it as a kind of technology cleanse.

Yearly, but in a big way: Give yourself a proper vacation from your devices if you can manage it.  A few days or a week away from technology, as this group of five neuroscientists and a reporter found when they turned off their phones and went into the Grand Canyon, will actually change your experience of the world around you.

How often do you consciously unplug?  Share your experiences in the comments.

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Four Stunning Tools for Visual Learning

Learning styles may be a myth, but I will make the unscientific assertion that I am a visual learner.  I need to see things for them to sink in.  In the past month, a handful of stunning visual learning tools have caught my attention. 1.  Take Notes in a New Way At a leadership retreat I attended last month, the two group facilitators were joined by a silent but powerful partner: Nora Herting, a graphic recorder from ImageThink.  As the retreat unfolded, Nora drew images and highlighted key phrases to capture the spirit and content of what was said.  Posted on the walls, the drawings became a map of our time together and conversation pieces in and of themselves.  Here's a video of Nora and her colleague at work:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efCiPNjEC0I]

2.  Zoom Past Powerpoint A friend introduced me to Prezi, a zooming, nonlinear presentation tool which offers a welcome alternative to Powerpoint.  In Prezi, instead of making sequential slides, you create your presentation on a big blank (electronic) canvas using font size, images and framing of text to create variety and emphasis.  Come presentation time you literally zoom around your canvas, following a path that you set ahead of time or changing course as the mood strikes.  I've only played around with Prezi online and have not yet used it for a presentation.  I'd be interested in hearing from folks who've tried it out.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP85gKbUDXs]

3.  Learn from a Whiteboard A growing YouTube collection of  whiteboard-illustrated presentations by smart thinkers makes for interesting viewing. Think TED talks, with pictures.    This format works for me because I am able to remember the main points of the talks I watch by recalling the words and images drawn on the board.  Check out this talk by Daniel Pink on motivation:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc]

4.  Map Your Mind Mind maps are hardly new, but they seem to belong on this list.  Anytime I start a project or paper - or when I have a complicated issue to think through - I find myself organizing my thoughts using a mind map.  A mind map is a visual, non-linear way to capture the relationship between thoughts and ideas.  There is a lot of mind mapping software out there, but I prefer the pen and paper method.   Mind map newbies may want to check out Tony Buzan's book on the topic for inspiration and how-to.

Below is one of my mind maps, one that I drew during a planning meeting for a retreat I was helping to organize.  You'll get a sense of the organic flow a mind map can capture (spelling mistakes and all).

Has your organization or school made use of any of these learning tools?  Do you think Powerpoint will ever die?  Share your thoughts in the comments.

Looking to improve learning across  your organization - or to tap into your own learning strengths?  Read more about working with me.  

Your Brain on Computers: A Do Your Best Work Roundup

This week the New York Times began a great series on computers and the brain, examining how our thoughts and behaviors (and frighteningly, our very ability to parent) have been altered by the multiple screens and data feeds that divide our attention.

Here at Do Your Best Work, we've spent the past 8 months exploring some of the same issues, only with fewer scientists and a smaller team of reporters (okay, it's just me).

If you've been captivated by the Times series, check out this roundup of Do Your Best Work pieces on related topics:

• Stressed out by technology? Maybe you need to learn how to tame the stress of your plugged-in life.
• Do a fun little test that demonstrates that multitasking is a myth.
• Email taking up all your time?  Learn strategies to ease the grip email has on your life.
• So you're ready to stop checking Twitter and do some actual work, at least for the next hour. Mazel tov!  How many minutes of Freedom do you want?
• Maybe you need to step away from your desk and take a walk to improve your productivity (and your health).
• Or even better yet, unplug altogether.

It's great to see some of these ideas taking hold in the mainstream media.  Have you read the Times series? What most surprised you?  Don't be shy, jump into the conversation by posting a comment below.

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Multitasking is a Myth

  As mobile technology has become more portable and more powerful, we are able to do many more things (phone calls, texting, watching movies) in more contexts (driving, walking down the street, waiting in line) than ever before.  Multitasking should be at an all-time high.

But as some recent books about the nature of attention have made clear, multitasking is largely a myth.  When we think we are multitasking, we are not so much doing two things at once as we are rapidly shifting our attention back and forth between those two things.  And all that shifting dramatically depletes our functioning, making it hard to do either thing efficiently or well.

Here's a quick experiment  to prove this point.  Write the phrase "MULTITASKING IS A MYTH" on a piece of paper, but intersperse the numbers 1 - 17 after each letter (M 1 U 2 L 3 T 4... etc.).  Now, write out the same phrase  as you normally would - no numbers in between - and when you finish that, write out the sequence of numbers 1 - 17.  See the difference? [Experiment adapted from this guy.]

While there are some "mindless" tasks that we can do while doing something else (folding laundry in front of the TV, for example) most everyday activities require much more focussed attention than you might think.

Ever turn down the music in your car while looking for parking?  Surf the internet while on a conference call and then realize you haven't been listening for the last 5 minutes?  These are examples of the natural limitations of our attention.  Better to give in to these limits and do one thing at a time, well.

Turn your screens off. Turn off your monitor, close your laptop and stop trying to read the headlines or catch up on email while you're on a conference call.  Be on the call.

Stop the dinging, pinging, flashing email alerts. For goodness sake, if you're trying to get focused work done, turn off your email alerts so you aren't getting pulled into whatever shows up in your inbox.  If you have to stay in the loop while you're getting other things done, schedule a 10 minute email break at the end of every hour, or better yet, every 90 minutes.

Remember that multitasking has consequences. Typos in work emails can make a bad impression, a distracted tone of voice can be read as standoffish, and of course texting while driving can lead to accidents.  There are very real costs to trying to push beyond the rather modest limits of our attention.

Next time you are tempted to split your attention between two or more tasks, ask yourself if the email, relationship, or your safety is important enough to you to get your full attention.

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Happy National Day of Unplugging!

When was the last time you turned off every beeping personal device  -- phone, email, laptop, iPod -- and were unreachable and untouched by media for a defined period of time?  Does the mere thought of doing this give you hives?

The Jewish nonprofit organization Reboot is suggesting we endure the hives this weekend, declaring a National Day of Unplugging for 24 hours starting at sundown tonight.  In accordance with the Jewish practice of shabbat, or sabbath, Reboot suggest that Jews and non-Jews alike experience what it is like to disconnect from technology and reconnect with the non-technological aspects of life.

Striking a similar chord, Peter Bregman's blog this week at Harvard Business Review focused on unplugging during vacation.   He relates what happened when he completely unplugged during a week-long camping trip in the Grand Canyon:

When I returned to civilization — and a phone — I had over 50 messages. But here's what I found most interesting: the first half of the messages all raised problems that needed to be resolved and the second half were the same people telling me not to worry about the first half because they had resolved the problems on their own.

In this way, unplugging can be an exercise in humility.  Yes, you are important -- but not so important that the world will stop turning if you unplug for a day or a week.

Besides a right-sized ego, what are some of the other benefits of unplugging?

Break the "always available" cycle. At my last job, I made myself available at all times to deal with potential work issues.  This was partly due to a culture (to which I contributed) of emailing among colleagues at all hours of the night and over the weekend. Some of these late-night missives were both important and urgent; most were not. By unplugging even for 24 hours, I was able to temporarily sidestep this dynamic and remind myself that it was okay to not be consumed by work 24/7.

Curb attention-splitting, and focus on the here-and-now. Until I practiced unplugging, I didn't fully realize how much I was splitting my attention between the present moment and a colorful, tiny screen.  Turns out a game of  Scrabble is more pleasurable when I am  not checking text messages during my opponent's turn.

Make smarter decisions. You might consider using your unplugged time to do deep thinking about pressing issues in your life.  Why?  Because being less distracted by technology may actually make you a smarter problem-solver. Check out the results of this UK study on the effects of technological distraction (via David Rock):

Eighty volunteers were asked to carry out problem solving tasks, firstly in a quiet environment and then while being bombarded with new emails and phone calls. Although they were told not to respond to any messages, researchers found that their attention was significantly disturbed.  Alarmingly, the average IQ was reduced by 10 points - double the amount seen in studies involving cannabis users... [further,] ...working amid a barrage of incoming information can reduce a person's ability to focus as much as losing a night's sleep.

Remove a major unconscious time-suck. I lose a lot of time to being online.  For others it may be getting sucked into TV or playing Tetris on their phones.  Often this happens unconsciously -- before we know it, it's been 2 hours in front of the screen.  When I unplug and remove the option of getting sucked into the internet, I feel freer to make more conscious choices about how I spend my time.

Rest and re-envision.  A pause in our normal routines can provide space for rest and reflection. As Mordechai Kaplan wrote,

An artist cannot be continuously wielding his brush.  He must stop at times in his painting to freshen his vision of the object, the meaning of which he wishes to express on his canvas.  Living is also an art.

Good luck unplugging, and reconnecting with the art of living.

Have you unplugged recently?  How did it effect you?

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