Graham Chastney (oak-grove)

My Tools: The Off Switch

I'm told that I live in an always-on world, and there are many times when it feels that way. Like many of you I have a tool available to me that keeps me in control of the times that I am available. It's an invaluable tool and it's called the off-switch.

Most of the devices I have include an off-switch, even if they don't I am still in control of the power supply. I have the power to unplug, or to remove the battery.

The off-switch is very good for your brain. As we are approaching the season of holidays and vacations now is the time that you should employ this tool as often as possible and preferably for an extended period.

Here's my guide to the off switch:

• On my laptop it's the small silver button just above the F9 key.
• On my desktop it's the larger silver button on the front towards the rear.
• On my blackberry it's a silver button on the top left of the device.

Go on, you can do it.

My Brain: Habits

It's been a while since I've written anything in the "my brain" series. It's not because I've not been thinking about it, but more to do with the path of assimilation that I set myself.

Recently I have been thinking about habits and how we change them, or develop new ones. I've got a number of bad habits that mean I am generally overweight and unfit, I'm also too busy and drink too much coffee.

I've been trying to decide whether it is best to focus on breaking these habits or to build new ones that supplant the old ones.

Today I came across this article in the New York Times entitled: Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?

I'm not sure it answers the question I've been trying to answer, but it says some interesting things. In particular it talks about being in a position of "stretch":

Comfort is the realm of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the middle — activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar — where true change occurs.

Although, in my current over-weight circumstance I quite liked the following piece of news:

“Getting into the stretch zone is good for you,” Ms. Ryan says in “This Year I Will... .” “It helps keep your brain healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases. Continuously stretching ourselves will even help us lose weight, according to one study. Researchers who asked folks to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, for instance — found that they lost and kept off weight. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general.”

This leads me back to where I started this journey.

Recently I have been trying to stretch myself with a new set of crosswords, it's quite depressing moving from a situation where you are used to completing a crossword to one where you can only complete half of it without help. If it was easy it wouldn't be a stretch.

Personally I think I spend more time in the "stress" zone than the "stretch" zone but hopefully I am coming out of the other side of it a bit. This week I have done an excessively long week and my brain is definitely feeling the strain. So I'm going to try and use this weekend to rest my brain, because that is important too.

Older Users Take Longer - 0.8% Longer per Year.

While I spend my last few hours as a thirty-something I was delighted to read a piece by Jakob Neilsen worryingly titled "Middle-Aged Users' Declining Web Performance":

Between the ages of 25 and 60, the time users need to complete website tasks increases by 0.8% per year.

In other words, a 40-year-old user will take 8% longer than a 30-year-old user to accomplish the same task. And a 50-year-old user will require an additional 8% more time. (Mathematically inclined readers will note that this increase is linear, not exponential.)

But it's not apparently all bad:

Does this mean that people in their 40s or 50s can't do their jobs? Not at all. There are many other ways in which people get better with age.

Individual differences swamp the tiny age-related difference in the 25- to 60-year-old group. Users are extraordinarily variable in their use of websites and intranets.

I have a 5-5-5 rule for task times while using websites: Across a broad range of studies, our data shows that

• the slowest 5% of users are
• about 5 times as slow
• as the fastest 5% of users,

meaning that the slowest users need 400% more time to perform the same tasks. The 0.8% difference caused by each year of aging pales in comparison.

So, a fast 50-year-old will beat a slow 30-year-old every day — by several hundred percent.

Hopefully, I'm not one of the people in the slowest 5% :-) Time to refocus my efforts on "My Brain".

(No this is not an April Fool)

Technorati Tags: Usability,Productivity,Aging

"Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy"

Attention deficit and the impacts of multi-tasking have been themes on this blog for a while now. It all started with me thinking about whether it is possible to have a "strong" brain, and whether it was possible to do things to exercise your brain and make it "stronger". Along the way I came across the issue of attention deficit trait and the impact of multi-tasking.

Walter Kirn has written a fascinating article on the impact of multi-tasking. It starts with this bold statement:

Neuroscience is confirming what we all suspect: Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy. One man’s odyssey through the nightmare of infinite connectivity.

It even gives some wonderful statistics on the impact:

Six hundred and fifty billion dollars. That’s what we might call our National Attention Deficit, according to Jonathan B. Spira, who’s the chief analyst at a business- research firm called Basex and has estimated the per annum cost to the economy of multitasking-induced disruptions. (He obtained the figure by surveying office workers across the country, who reported that some 28 percent of their time was wasted dealing with multitasking- related transitions and interruptions.)

But the real joy in this article is the story that surrounds all of the information, and for that, you need to read the article.

One of the reasons I am writing this post is that I had planned to work from home today because I need to get my head around some thing. Working from home normally allows me to blank out everything and focus in on the core task. Unfortunately my neighbour has started some building work today and the trucks keep reversing up the cul-de-sac with those annoying reversing warnings blaring away. However much I try to focus in on the important thing, the distractions keep coming, and you can only turn the quiet music up so load. There's no point in me trying to get my head around the task that is ahead of me because I will just get distracted, try to regain my thought, get distracted, get frustrated, and on and on.

If this post comes to you as an interruption - sorry, but it's really your fault for not turning off the notification on whatever reader you are using. You are allowed to turn things off you know.

(Jimmy and Grandad are watching Mr. Benn at the National Media Museum in Bradford. One of the attractions of the museum is to be able to go into one section, choose a programme from the archives and show your kids what television was like when you were a kid. We were all surprised how slow Mr. Benn was. Another sign of the impact we are having on our brains.)

Technorati tags: Attenteion Deficit, Multi Tasking, Brainstorm, Dumb, Concentration

Learning Agility - Be Curious

Following on from yesterday's post on Learning Agility I was interested to find an article by Bill Gates on the BBC today about "The skills you need to succeed":

Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.

I also place a high value on having a passion for ongoing learning. When I was pretty young, I picked up the habit of reading lots of books.

It's great to read widely about a broad range of subjects. Of course today, it's far easier to go online and find information about any topic that interests you.

Having that kind of curiosity about the world helps anyone succeed, no matter what kind of work they decide to pursue.

It's very easy to become one dimensional, curiosity is a great way of becoming and staying multi-dimensional.

Technorati tags: Bill Gates, Learning Agility, Curiosity

Learning About Me - Learning Agility

The other day I realised how much personal development stuff I had done this year. So I've decided that it's time to assimilate some of it, rather than just learn it.

Starting with the one that I did most recently, and have assimilated the least - learning agility. This is based on the Lominger book - FYI for Talent Management.

As a quick introduction here's an extract from the start of the book:

Talent is usually considered the people who are in the upper 10 percent of what they do. What separates the best from the rest who perform well? To be good at anything requires some knowledge, skills, and technical know how. Both the best and the rest have that. One thing that separates the best from the rest is the ability to adjust, adapt, respond to, and be resourceful in the face of change.

....

Regardless of how intelligent or technically skilled you are, the best way to increase your talent score or effectiveness is to improve you learning agility. Relatively unrelated to intelligence (also good to have), learning agility is basically how well you adapt to the new and different.

The book then goes on to split learning agility into four areas, each with a set of learning themes.

On a quick assessment there weren't really any surprises to me.

The four areas are:

• Mental agility
• People agility
• Change agility
• Results agility

Anyone who knows me would guess the top - mental agility where I came out above the 99th percentile. The only surprise was how high this was, it's nice to have it affirmed though.

After that the other three are quite close between the 75th and 90th percentile.

Getting into the themes.

My strengths are:

• Critical thinker
• Inquisitive
• Solution finder
• Agile communicator
• Personal learner

Again, no surprises there and reinforcement for previous assessments.

Onto the "to be worked on" section. The areas where I came out weaker were as follows:

• Cool transactor
• Light touch
• People smart
• Presence

Each of these areas then has a set of remedies and recommendations. I've picked out a few things that I am going to try and do. I'm not going to detail them here just yet, we'll see how I get on with them first.

I do feel a bit like I've come back to the beginning of a journey, because learning agility is almost where I started from in August 2006.

Technorati tags: Learning Agility

Assessment, Assessment, Assessment - Time for Some Assimilation

This last year has been one of personal development - primarily leadership development. I've done a number of seminars, sessions and courses. These have all involved some level of assessment, learning agility, leadership style, learning style, etc. the list goes on. Yesterday was another day when another quick assessment gave another view on who I am.

I feel like the time has come to assimilate some of this information. It's not really any good as information, if I'm not going to do something with it. Over the next few weeks I think I need to go back over the various assessments, glean from them the appropriate observations and then do something with them.

As a starter, though, I need to work out what it is I have actually done:

• FranklinCovey 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Insights Discovery
• Lominger Choices Architect
• Lominger Learning Architect
• Internal Leadership Competency Profile

I'm not sure yet whether I'm going to through them all and try to pick out the common themes are whether I'm going to revisit each of them in turn and build a plan for each one.

I've tagged this to go into my category "My Brain" because I think that it is all linked to the original purpose of those thoughts.

Happiness at Work

If you ever wondered what happiness at work looked like then watch this video:

It's not about pay - it's about passion.

See more here.

Concept of the day: Deindividuation

Anyone who has used email or any other form of electronic communication has seen (and probably sent) written content that shocked you. You were amazed that the person, that you know, could say such a thing in such an aggressive way. The New Scientist has an interesting article that suggests that some of the reason for this is deindividuation:

Social psychologists have known for decades that, if we reduce our sense of our own identity – a process called deindividuation – we are less likely to stick to social norms. For example, in the 1960s Leon Mann studied a nasty phenomenon called "suicide baiting" – when someone threatening to jump from a high building is encouraged to do so by bystanders. Mann found that people were more likely to do this if they were part of a large crowd, if the jumper was above the 7th floor, and if it was dark. These are all factors that allowed the observers to lose their own individuality.

Social psychologist Nicholas Epley argues that much the same thing happens with online communication such as email. Psychologically, we are "distant" from the person we're talking to and less focused on our own identity. As a result we're more prone to aggressive behaviour, he says.

The most recent place where I have seen this personally has been in the occasional reply-to-all storms that we have in our email system. Someone will send out an email to whole set of people. Someone else will reply-to-all that they don't know why they received the first email, or similar. This will then set of a storm of activity from people replying to the reply-to-all. Each of these replies will get more and more aggressive in their language.

If only these people sat back and analysed what they were doing they would stop doing it. It's unlikely any of them have read though the recipient list to see who is on it, in their minds they are just replying to some random person. What they are actually doing is replying to all sorts of senior people who could have a great influence on their career, what's more they are abusing a fellow colleague. If they only thought about how they would feel to receive such an email they wouldn't do it.

A wise person once said: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

via TechCrunch

Technorati tags: brain, deindividuation, comments, email

Concept of the day: Attention Deficit Trait (ADT)

I've just finished reading a Harvard Business Review OnPoint called Overloaded Circuits: Why Smart People Underperform. This talks about attention deficit trait (ADT). The Harvard article comes at a cost but the article in Time has a good overview, as does the CNET article.

Frenzied executives who fidget through meetings, miss appointments, and jab at the elevator's "door close" button aren't crazy - just crazed. They're suffering from a newly recognized neurological phenomenon call attention deficit trait (ADT). Marked by distractibility, inner frenzy, and impatience, ADT prevents managers from clarifying priorities, making smart decisions, and managing their time. This insidious condition turns otherwise talented performers into harried underachievers. And it's reaching epidemic proportions"

Sound like anyone you know?

It seems that ADT is completely caused by our environment, by the office, by the technology, by relationships.

So how do we control it:

• Promote positive emotions
• Take physical care of our brains
• Organise for ADT

ADT is closely related to the way that our brain reacts to fear so it's important to promote positive feelings through stressful times. Positive feelings are also associated with good relationships. The author recommends interacting with someone you like at least every 4 to 6 hours. That's an interesting thing for someone who mainly works at home to hear.

I've talked before about the physical side of looking after our brain, sleep, diet, etc. It's a good reminder that I've let it slip a bit recently.

Organising for ADT is about creating the space and time to think away from all of the distractions. This isn't just time management, but it's also managing things out.

I was talking to someone who runs a huge fund in New York, and he was saying he demands that his employees take several days a month just to think--to leave the office and just go off and think. He wants them to not bring their e-mail, not bring their cell phone--make themselves unavailable. And I think it's a really smart management strategy.

Organisations used to give people sabbaticals, some still do. In a world that is increasingly asking for for "fast" rather than "right" I think that people are increasingly going to need times to reconnect with "right".