Daily affirmations of a word mercenary
I’m back from a long weekend in Colorado with family, and I’m currently drowning under waves of logistics. Even though I stayed on top of my email while I was out of town, somehow within 15 minutes of my plane touching down today I had a dozen or more emails, calls, and texts from various people wanting information, details, updates, answers, etc etc etc. My skull almost collapsed from the weight of it all. So if you’re thinking of emailing, calling, or texting me with a question, request, or other logistical reason, please hold off on doing so for at least 48 hours because realistically I’m overwhelmed. Awesome!
For right now, I have only this to share: over dinner the other night, my step-aunt (who I’ve seen once in the past 20 years) looked at me and said, “You know, you WERE an odd child.”
8 Responses to “Odd Child”
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Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, is in bookstores now.
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kelly
October 1st, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Yeah, well…odd children somehow manage to buck the system and turn into amazing people. Like you.
Arielmeow
October 1st, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I’m doing a session on this at InfoCamp. Methinks I should interview you at some point. The culture of information overload and being seriously overscheduled - and how we can make info products that ease this - is going to be my ongoing topic of research for a while.
jcricket
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:53 am
It seems the solution to overload is right in front of you - the off button. Turn off the computer, stop twittering, stop updating the status on facebook, don’t worry if you haven’t updated your blog or cleared your feed reader today. Your internet friends and Wikipedia will be there tomorrow, but your real-life friends may not.
And overscheduling is easy to solve too. Say no. If you have another event (or two) booked that day, so “Sorry, I can’t attend” to the third event. Give yourself travel and down-time on days when you have other things going on. Not only will you feel better, but you’ll be a better guest/attendee if you’re not already worried about when you need to leave from the moment you arrive somewhere.
I’m not a loner or a Luddite (I like parties, enjoy my HDTV and high-speed Internet) but despite the ease of use with all the new-fangled web 2.0 gizmos, I avoid using most of them beyond the basic/diversionary level - because I see how easy it is to suck up all your time with what ends up being frivolous endeavors. Getting rid of my Blackberry was one of the best things I’ve ever done (still have a cell phone, but I’m not checking my email every 10 seconds).
When I see people furiously texting their way through lunch while ignoring the people in front of them (better yet, texting people elsewhere in the restaurant) it just makes me sad. No wonder we all feel so isolated.
WeddingSavvy
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Love your Auntie!
I love the older crowd.
Odd Child =Odd Adult!
Be proud!
Ariel
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:36 am
jcricket, that’s actually exactly what I did. I got home from the airport, turned off my Sidekick, and took the dog for a nice long walk.
jcricket
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:20 am
Smart thinking (walking the dog, turning off the sidekick). My comment was directed more at the “other” ariel who commented that we can use “info tools” to manage information overload. Methinks those tools are unnecessary.
Just shut stuff off. Don’t respond to every email/text as you get them. Don’t answer the cell phone if you’re otherwise occupied. Don’t bring the laptop to the meeting. It’s all pretty simple. Single-tasking is severely under-rated.
Or, as this post about all the new web 2.0 social networking tools puts it:
Arielmeow
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Hi jcricket - not to sabotage Ariel’s blog for my own conversation… but point well taken. In my own life I get away from the chatter as much as possible, as long as possible - but it’s easier for some folks than others depending on work and other life factors.
I work in the information industry (I am a user experience architect) and the reason I do the work I do is not because I love technology and information saturation. It is because I think these things are totally useful if we design them right, and if the way we put them out in the world asks us to use them in ways that are more human, less fragmented. I think we can bake this into product design.
I also think some of my information tools really enrich my life and save me time so I can get to the more important things.
jcricket
October 4th, 2007 at 9:03 am
At least your name is ariel, so you can always claim to be “on topic”
My conclusion, after about 20 years in the IT industry, is that I think there are a small number of personal info tools that actually enrich life, and a large number that give the illusion of doing so while mainly serving to provide more diversion from stuff that really matters.
The same people that wouldn’t be “caught dead” watching 3-4 hours of TV per day spend at least that much time twittering, facebooking, surfing wikipedia/youtube and reading RSS feeds of people they’ll never meet (although now that ariel lives in my hood, I suppose that might change).
The book “Bowling Alone” makes some pretty good arguments about how being more individualistic has led to less connectedness. There’s some weird irony in that we’re more “connected” now than ever (always-on Internet, mobile phones that people can reach us on any time of the day or night, etc.) and yet also less connected.