Slowlane

Web Meanderings

The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time

The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time:

Excellent reminder from HBR to focus on doing one thing well:

Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? Do you bring your laptop to meetings and then pretend you’re taking notes while you surf the net? Do you eat lunch at your desk? Do you make calls while you’re driving, and even send the occasional text, even though you know you shouldn’t?

Well, yeh sometimes… The post finishes with some suggestions for managers

  • Maintain meeting discipline.

  • Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day.

  • Encourage renewal….It’s also up to individuals to set their own boundaries.

  • Do the most important thing first in the morning

  • Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically

  • Take real and regular vacations. 

(Via HBR.org)

Finding Significance in a World of Distraction

Really good material here from Becoming Minimalist.

Finding Significance in a World of Distraction:

For example, the distraction of a lucrative and powerful career has the opportunity to distract us from using our talents to benefit our immediate community. The distraction of maintaining a large and perfect home may pull us from caring for the people living in it. The urge to check up on our Facebook friends steals more of our time than the friends right in front of us. And the opportunity to spend money on newer and trendier possessions may divert us from using it to accomplish a greater good in this world. In each case, the distraction keeps us from accomplishing a greater significance with our lives.

After calling out the challenge, a number of tools are offered including being mindful of the “culture we are swimming in”, the importance of finding stillness through pausing and reflecting, seeking inspiration from role models and living with fewer possessions. A timely reminder as I was getting a bit caught up in the importance of getting an iPad 3!

(Via Becoming Minimalist)

Diversify Your Dreams

Great post from HBR that calls out the danger of simplifying your dreams down to a narrow outcome that can setup a black and white success or failure scenario. One tool they describe to help avoid this is the “folder of gratitude”

Diversify Your Dreams:

So how do you start moving from one dream to many? A practical tip I’ve seen work well is to develop a “folder of gratitude,” a constantly-updated list of all the things in life you’re grateful for. Chances are, many of the things on your list correspond neatly with your underlying passions. Then, take your list and amplify these passions with intelligent experiments. Test and invest in your areas of interest, and cultivate the joy of learning from failure

(Via HBR.org)

Sleep Apnea and Sonomed

This article from the BBC describes a sleeping pattern involving two sleeps of about 4 hours with a period of wakefulness in between, known as segmented sleep. It seems there is evidence that this was the normal sleep pattern until the night was pushed back by street lighting at the end of the 16th century.

During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.

This is interesting to me as I have experienced long periods of wakefulness at night for most of my life. Recently I underwent a sleep test and was diagnosed with mild sleep apnea. The recommended treatment was a dental device manufactured by Sonomed an Australian company. After an adjustment to reduce the pressure on one of my teeth the device is now relatively comfortable to wear - it takes some getting used to having two substantial pieces of plastic in your mouth all night!. The device works by preventing the lower jaw from dropping back during the night which causes the throat to close and the airway to be occluded. The brain reacts by waking you up to some degree. This may occur many times every hour and is can be quite disturbing to anyone sharing the bed with you!

So far I am positive about the Sonodent and look forward to having more energy during the day.

The Ongoing Challenge of How to Spend Your Time

There has been a continuous stream of media about finding your passion and reviewing your working life against higher goals. This post from workawesome is a nice summary, and once it referred to the Eightfold Path and Right Livelihood I had to link it.

Is it a Job, Career or Your True Calling?:

What is it that you love doing the most? What are you passionate about and what brings you alive? What work would you engage in if you had no other considerations? How could you use your talents to make a difference to society? Stepping back and deliberating on these thoughts can provide you the stimulus towards discovering your deeper purpose and true calling.

(Via workawesome.com)

Still very much an ongoing challenge for me.

Movie - Off the Map

I noticed this post recommending the movie “Off The Map” recently.

We watched it last night and really enjoyed it. We have been talking about it on and off all day today which is the sign of a movie that has gotten under our skin. I particularly liked the understated direction that let the landscape and the story unfold without joining all the dots for the viewer. Fascinating also to see the homesteading life depicted. I was scanning each frame for those small details that give authenticity and was not dissapointed. We already had the Taos region on our destination list as we love native american jewellery, so now we have another motive to visit.

(Via Cage Free Family)

Reviews

Tina Ferguson

Film Critic.com

Some notes from the director Campbell Scott