Time & Attention

"Zerstreutheit" and the Attention Management Cure

Merlin — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:34:14 -0400

Linda Stone: Is it Time to Retire the Never-Ending List?

Linda Stone -- who coined the phrase "continuous partial attention" -- makes a thoughtful distinction between managing time and attention, deflating the misconception that making long lists and then overscheduling your day can be a bulwark against distractions, interruptions, and the crippling feeling of being overwhelmed.

In this recent blog entry from the Huffington Post, Stone talks about a pattern she's noticed from talking with people about how they think about and plan their day.

What did surgeons, artists, and CEO's have in common? Most of them reported that they managed both their time and their attention. In surgery, in the studio, and in the time carved out to think through strategies and issues, these professionals reported shutting down the devices and endless inputs (email, phone, interruptions), at scheduled times, and claiming those moments to focus. In almost every case, these professionals reported experiencing "flow" (a la Csikszentmihalyi) in their work.

[HuffPo link via Boing Boing]

She also goes on to include some tips about managing attention and focusing on outcomes rather than just obsessing over building a long and un-doable list. Good post -- and a great reminder that time management has no prayer of working if it's not accompanied by even tighter attention management.

I also have to share this William James quote, which Stone's post mentions in passing (my emphasis).

Every one knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state which in French is called distraction, and Zerstreutheit in German.

"Zerstreutheit." I love it when there's a German word for my problem.

”"Zerstreutheit" and the Attention Management Cure” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 13, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Email Insanity & the 0.001 Challenge

Merlin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:11:46 -0400

Via a Toot by Jeff Atwood comes this thoughtful post by Tantek Çelik on how email is no longer working for him. His first reason is a biggie:

1. Point to point communications do not scale.

All forms of communication where you have to expend time and energy on communicating with a specific person (anything that has a notion of "To" in the interface that you have to fill in) are doomed to fail at some limit. If you are really good you might be able to respond to dozens (some claim hundreds) of individual emails a day but at some point you will simply be spending all your time writing email rather than actually "working" on any thing in particular (next-actions or projects, e.g. coding, authoring, drawing, enjoying your life etc.)

This is one reason I'm getting attracted to using Get Satisfaction as a way to expose help issues to a large group of helpers and helpees (BTW, we're just getting started on GS -- FAQs and more will be coming soon). I'm also realizing that this is why I (and Jonathan Coulton and probably you) struggle with holding up dozens of one-on-one conversations -- it locks up your attention and its fruits in thousands of inaccessible alcoves. And truly, that does not and will not scale.

But, y'know, as I read Tantek's post, alongside his "Communication Protocols" notes, I found myself returning to a pet theory that I've been too embarrassed to lay out in a real post. But what the heck, I'll capture some notes and you can tell me what you think:

I suspect that email encourages people to act insane.

Right this minute, you can create an email of unlimited length covering topics of unlimited scope and then send it to unlimited numbers of people -- whom you may or may not even know -- all at absolutely no cost to you. There is also no prohibition or boundary of any kind on how you phrase that email. There's no formal penalty or even feedback for when you're using email inappropriately (e.g. the dirty look that you'd get if you said something this weird to someone's face). Plus, of course, YOU get to decide (at least in your own head) exactly how quickly all those people should be getting back to you about whatever it is you emailed them about. And you can do this pretty much any time you want and as many times a day as it suits you. No Limits.

An optimist would say this indicates what a wonderfully flexible tool email is. But, a pessimist with 1500 unread emails will point out that this Wild West of Communication seems to bring out the nut in people.

As I say, there must be something about email's unusual combination of intimacy and distance that can get people very emotionally engaged in hammering out demands in an email message. And not just flames -- I'm talking about people whose de facto style is borne out of an uninhibited conduit between thoughts, emotions, or desires and the email medium that helps them convert that into some kind of request.

How and why this is related to Tantek's post, I'm not entirely sure. But I think there's some common ground here. Especially as this relates to that one-on-one idea and why it doesn't scale.

Email culture and etiquette -- if there is such a thing -- occurs when people have a sense of how their behavior will be seen and evaluated by anyone who is not themselves. The reason most of us wear pants to the grocery store is the same reason that some people think very hard about every word that goes into their email messages and what it will mean when people read them. They understand that the message should be more about the recipient than themselves. And the Great Ones will take the time to get the tone right too -- to phrase things so that misunderstandings and unintentional emotional provocations don't occur.

But if -- even without realizing it -- you see email primarily as a one-on-one medium for venting some...thing that's on your mind, you're going to produce a lot of electronic madness. Especially if you think no one is watching.

I'm going to think on this some more, but I'll close with a related thought on why this all goes straight back to Time & Attention 101.

Any system without scarcity or limitation will eventually suffer at the hands of people who aren't overtly aware of boundaries -- or who actively choose to break those boundaries because they can. Limitations in a communication medium not only make you think a little harder about what you have to say, they also encourage you to focus on what you and your recipient really need out of the exchange.

While I'm not suggesting anything as extreme as the five-sentence email, I wonder if this might be a fun exercise to try for a day:

The 0.001 Challenge

Imagine that the person receiving the email you’re composing receives 1,000 other message each day more or less identical to yours. What would you do to distinguish yours from the others? What change would make your email amazingly easy to deal with and not insane? Does the content of your email belong someplace else? Like an SMS, a face-to-face meeting — or maybe even in an angry, venting screed that you never send.

”Email Insanity & the 0.001 Challenge” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 24, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

A Day Unplugged: Frenzied Blackberries vs. Kwai Chang Caine?

Merlin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:42:21 -0500

I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really. - New York Times

In yesterday's New York Times, Mark Bittman wrote an entertaining and thoughtful article about realizing that his need to stay wired, in-touch, and updated was really starting to eat into him. His headslap moment came on an international flight, as he realizes "the only other place I could escape was in my sleep." He goes on to talk about the difficulty of maintaining even a single day of "Sabbath" from electronic communication and media:

I woke up nervous, eager for my laptop. That forbidden, I reached for the phone. No, not that either. Send a text message? No. I quickly realized that I was feeling the same way I do when the electricity goes out and, finding one appliance nonfunctional, I go immediately to the next. I was jumpy, twitchy, uneven.

But, eventually, he settles in and starts to enjoy things that would never appear on his radar screen on a wired day:

I drank herb tea (caffeine was not helpful) and stared out the window. I tried to allow myself to be less purposeful, not to care what was piling up in my personal cyberspace, and not to think about how busy I was going to be the next morning. I cooked, then went to bed, and read some more.

GRADUALLY, over this and the next couple of weekends — one of which stretched from Friday night until Monday morning, like the old days — I adapted.

Eventually (natch), he returns to the wired world. So it goes.

I liked that this piece was written from a personal perspective, which, to my mind, is the best (and, often, only) place to start any kind of experiment around hacking time and attention. And, I do really like the idea of periodically accepting (enforcing?) days without media and wires. Truly, you'll never realize how difficult this can be until you really make it happen. But, as Bittman notes, once you get over the initial crash, you can see a striking contrast in what your life could look like. Good stuff.

But, like a lot of pieces on wired overstimulation, this one comes close to conflating the axis of "work" with the axis of "electronic media." Which, in my opinion, is an unwholesome confusion to abide, even just in appearance -- especially since it could be seen as blaming inert matter for our problems, while allowing us addicts (and the culture we've permitted ourselves to grow accustomed to) to get off way too easy.

J'accuse!

Let's be brutally honest, here -- I can "work" at my computer for 10 hours and do nothing but dick around with Wikipedia and YouTube. Heck, even if I do "work stuff" like email and "research," I can easily trail off in a hundred directions that have nothing to do with my initial task. Is that the fault of the computer and the internet? Maybe, kinda. But, no more so than I can reasonably blame this crappy hammer for that awkward birdhouse I built. Stupid hammer.

So, let's start by admitting that one reason we spend so much time in front of a screen (or hooked up to an iPod or SMSing on the phone or updating Twitter) is simply because we can. Because it's fun. And because it's easy. It makes us feel...connected. Is it the fault solely of "my job" that I have to sit here all day? For me: I'm going to say a resounding no.

Okay, then, so what happens when I go off the grid?

From printer paper to rice paper

Well, first, does it strike anyone else as funny that -- notwithstanding Bittman's desire not to get too "new-agey" -- the main alternative to stressful, wired work appears to be acting like a monk on Kung Fu? I mean, I wonder if it says anything about us that our first response to unhooking (after initial panic) is to pretend it's the 19th century and all we can do is read scrolls, meditate, or walk amongst the trees.

For myself -- once I've had my cup of green tea and carried a cauldron of hot coals with my forearms -- I find there are lots of work-related things I can do without a computer, phone, or internet. Really good and valuable stuff that I tend to forget about or ignore when I'm powered up. Stuff like longhand writing, cleaning out old files, or just making my work area a more pleasant place to be.

I'm not disagreeing with this fine article in any substantial way -- I mean, it's not hard to sell me on the idea that we allow ourselves to be overstimulated, or that it's hard to stop. But, I do think it's very important to be frank about what parts of our problem come from the hammer versus which parts come from our own hands. I think Bittman clearly gets that, but I'd hate for this article to just land on the CEO's desk in the pile titled "The Internet's Killing 'The Enterprise!'"

And, speaking of 'The Enterprise'

So: vaguely (but mostly not) related. Whenever a company proudly announces "No Email Fridays!" I just want to groan, wad up my David Carradine poster, and throw it across the dojo. Because, while I'm sure this kind of rule (or policy or experiment) is well-intentioned, it's about as employee-friendly as ankle weights and morning jumping-jacks.

Email is not the problem, America. The culture around email (and phones and meetings and SMS) is the real culprit. And we're not going to change perverse electronic culture by nailing theses to a door or by social-engineering the crap out of our employees. Plus, I'll just bet you, dimes to donuts, that "no-Friday-email" companies also breed a species of employee who spends most of Saturday making up for the lost time. (Instead of hanging with family or practicing having spears thrown at him by the other Shaolins)

I'd say that if we need anything "enforced" across a company it's periodic, rolling breaks from being accessible to everybody; to create an environment where everyone in the group or company knows the time and day when they will simply be uninterruptible, without exception, consequence, or need for excuse. That's their time to do with as they please.

Now, is this a distinction without a difference from just shutting off email? No way. For one, that email still piles up (even over the eight hours you're commanded to ignore it). And what's to prevent that Friday from being the day someone decides to just hand-deliver all their demands to my cube? What about meetings? And can we still call each other on the phone? Where's the real break? Sane and firewalled time -- yes, even to process email -- is what people really need to have and depend upon.

I'd say the company that wants to solve the "too much connectedness" problem would do well not just to focus on the easy solutions that involve masking symptoms. To really get closer to the root cause, it'll require a much more profound rethinking of a culture that's still 20 years behind the technology it supports.

And that ain't gonna happen with a memo and an "email-free" Friday.

It's not you; it's us

On a personal level, accepting these kinds of radical fasts can be a terrific way to detox or to just reconnect with a world that's further than arm's reach from your keyboard. And it reminds us that (apparently) there are alternative approaches to a morning that don't involve a mouse or a keypad. This is all awesome -- even indispensable. But let's not be lulled into thinking that the medium is always the murderer.

So, yes: take time off from electronics and media, and take time off from work. But, be mindful about which is which -- as well as which it is that you really need the break from. For most of us, the answer is an unequivocal "both!"

And, finally, is it conceivable that what you really need the break from is new demands on your time? What does solving that problem look like? And can it really be accomplished simply by unplugging a few things for a day or two? (My guess: no, it's actually a lot more complicated than that.)

Me? I just want to inch toward a place where I get the problem enough that I can stop work for an hour to enjoy my iPod just as easily as I can take 10 minutes and a legal pad to draft a dull report under a tree. It's ultimately how we'll snatch the pebble, Grasshopper.

”A Day Unplugged: Frenzied Blackberries vs. Kwai Chang Caine?” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 03, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Video: Merlin's Time & Attention Talk

Merlin — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:39:27 -0500

Macworld '08: Merlin Mann / "Living with Data"

Like the talk? Hire Merlin

Sure, you can hire Merlin to speak to your group. Here’s how.

This was the first edition of a talk that's already starting to evolve rather quickly. The slides are available at Slideshare, and you can yoink yourself an embeddable version right here:

Notes:

Last month, I premiered a new presentation at Macworld San Francisco 2008 called "Living with Data" (previously). Since this talk was part of the "Vision" track, I used the opportunity to start gathering some threads around the idea of time and attention that had been floating around my head for a while (I think you can see the genesis of some of this stuff in my IDEO visit).

The IDG folks were kind enough to post a movie of my slides + the audio. Unfortunately a lot of folks were having trouble getting to the page (it doesn't appear to have a permalink), so here's a Flash version you can watch from right here.

Thanks to Paul Kent and Kathy Moran at IDG for being such wonderful hosts. And very special thanks to Mike Monteiro (and his now-famous meeting tokens) for inspiring the talk in the first place.

”Video: Merlin's Time & Attention Talk” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 14, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Vox Populi: Reasons to Quit

grant — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 14:41:55 -0500

I have a lot of trouble keeping track of what I'm supposed to be doing. It's not that I necessarily have trouble prioritizing my tasks or scheduling things - I mean I do, but that's not the main problem.

The main problem is that I've got too many things I really need (want) to do - too many long-term projects with potential - and I'm never exactly sure when they're a few weeks away from a grand payoff and when they're just wasting my time.

I suppose this is a crisis of faith.

Here's the thing: I'm creative for a living, which means I always have two or three (or 20 or 30) things going on at once, none of which are guaranteed to actually create anything, but all of which could - provided I can focus enough attention to them. You know the kind of thing I'm talking about. Finishing that screenplay. Practicing with the band. Re-editing that short story. Spending the weekend on a film shoot. Learning Photoshop. These are all things that have that point in the middle - the "desperate hour," a creative journalist friend of mine called it - when you're absolutely not sure why you're even there.

And sometimes, the sad truth is, that doubting voice is absolutely right - sometimes, this thing you're sweating over really is just wasting your time.

So here's my question:

How do you know when it's time to move on? What makes you make up your mind?

Because I really need to know.

”Vox Populi: Reasons to Quit” was written by grant balfour for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on November 12, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Meeting Tokens, for creating time scarcity

Merlin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:16:51 -0400

My pal, Mike Monteiro, is making good on his idea to try giving his team Meeting Tokens.

Previously mentioned in this post about re-creating scarcity and, in more detail, in my IDEO talk.

Can't wait to hear how it goes. I love me some scarcity.

Update, 2007-10-19 10:18 PT: Mike says he's going to produce these as handsome wooden tokens that will soon be available for sale in sets on the Mule Feed Store.

Update 2007-10-20 14:52 PT: Mike adds "The Red Merlin" to the mix.

Each bag of meeting tokens will include ONE Red Merlin. It's up to you to decide how it gets in someone's hands.

Playing the Red Merlin ends ANY meeting on the spot. No questions. (Beware of retaliation though; play it to make allies, not to make enemies.)

I'm honored.

”Meeting Tokens, for creating time scarcity” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 19, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Technology for smarter ignoring

Merlin — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:31:36 -0400

Cory Doctorow has a short piece in Internet Evolution called "The Future of Ignoring Things" that really resonated with me. Excerpt:

Take email: Endless engineer-hours are poured into stopping spam, but virtually no attention is paid to our interaction with our non-spam messages. Our mailer may strive to learn from our ratings what is and is not spam, but it expends practically no effort on figuring out which of the non-spam emails are important and which ones can be safely ignored, dropped into archival folders, or deleted unread...

Figuring out what you can afford to ignore in life is starting to seem like an art form to me. Since failure to filter incoming stuff properly over time has consequences way beyond annoyance, I'm starting to think that getting it right may be another one of those emerging knowledge worker skills.

It's definitely one I'm working on (and struggling with).

[via: BB]

”Technology for smarter ignoring” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 03, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Field Reports: Guerrilla Office Tactics

Merlin — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 10:45:04 -0400

I've started collecting stories -- some of which may be entirely apocryphal tall tales -- of the purported lengths to which people are going to filter noise and to ensure that their time and attention aren't ceded to bad ideas, thoughtless people, or garden-variety time burglars.

Here's a few of the more novel ones I've picked up. I'd also love to hear your favorites from amongst the cheats, tricks, and squirrely rules you've heard about:

Before you flame me

I’m not saying I necessarily promote or recommend any of these for you (or anyone, for that matter) — I just think they’re a fascinating snapshot of the lengths people need to go to today in order to get a semblance of order in their environment.

Bozo filter - Filter into a "holding" folder every email message for which you are not the sole "TO:" recipient. This filter includes lists, "CC:"s, "BCC:"s, and any number of other bulk-y messages that were never destined for you alone. Then you check that folder once a day, and create compensating rules as needed.
Smoking the bacn - Similar to my "no press releases" trick, filter any email that contains the string "to unsubscribe." Although many of these certainly will be valuable (sign-ups, Google lists), that string means there's a good chance they're also bulk messages that are being generated automatically. And some folks want to only see those sorts of emails, again, once or twice a day -- and only when they have extra time (read as: don't interrupt me whenever someone on Facebook wants me to be a zombie, or whatever).
Trusted (and lazy) filter - For a very noisy, high-volume list, filter all messages except those by 2-3 people whom you really respect. When those people chime in, catch up with what they're responding to -- chances are good you haven't missed much and can use their appearance to get up to speed.
Lessons from Mr. Hand - One minute after a designated meeting time, the door to the meeting room closes, and latecomers ain't welcome. (I'd also note that this can have unintended consequences if you're the "late" guy and you happen to hate going to meetings)
No gadgets - Put a table by the door to the meeting room. If you want to come in to the meeting, any electronic device you brought with you stays there, powered-off. No grazing until a break or when the meeting is over. The thinking: if you have time to fiddle with your iPhone, you're clearly not needed in that part of the meeting, so why are you and your device even there?
Remove the comfort - Related to the "no gadgets" rule, some groups are reportedly trying to reduce meeting time by making it less fun and comfortable to sit around for an hour or two. This can range from no longer "catering" meetings with food and water, to shutting off wi-fi, to more extreme measures, such as no-chair meetings.

Yeah, sure, some of these are extreme, and some may get you fired or punched in the nose. But you have to admit, people are conducting some fascinating evolutionary experiments. Tempting stuff.

The Question to You

Have you heard of any tricks that teams and individuals are trying to keep the madness at bay? Any that you can verify are being used in your own group — and are they succeeding or failing? For the mentioned tricks you find abhorrent, what solutions do you think might work better?

”Field Reports: Guerrilla Office Tactics” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 01, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Vox Pop: Re-creating scarcity

Merlin — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:43:07 -0400

I have a friend who told me he was thinking about giving his project managers a weekly pile of chips that could be redeemed for person-hours in meetings. So, to schedule firewalled, group face-time, the PM would need to cough up the equivalent number of tokens from her pile. Thus, one, long, all-hands meeting might require the whole week's stack. While, fewer, shorter meetings with smaller groups made the pile go further.

It was just an idea, and I'm pretty sure he never implemented it, but I think it's a fascinating concept. Why? Because I love the idea of re-introducing scarcity into systems that lack boundaries.

Think how the internet in particular (for better and worse) is working to erase any sense of scarcity in our lives -- at least in terms of access to people and ideas. You can email anybody any time; you can divebomb onto someone's radar screen with an IM or SMS; you can have Amazon deliver almost anything to your door tomorrow morning; you can find and download from millions of files instantly; and, given the right tool, you can locate almost any fact in seconds.

But what about the very real (and truly limited) resources that involve human time and attention? Do we want to make ourselves as available as Google and Wikipedia are? Do we want our entire staff to be "always on" for anyone who wants them? What if, for example, emails to a distribution list cost something?

The Question to You

Have you thought about ways to re-introduce scarcity into your life and work? Are you or your team using any homemade systems to govern resources that might otherwise become overtaxed or abused? How would you solve the “too many long meetings” problem?

”Vox Pop: Re-creating scarcity” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 27, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"