Today was my first official day of work for 2012. For the past five days I have done nothing other than read books, eat fruit and lie on Melbourne’s inner-city beaches working on my tan. Aside from a few days spent in Turkey and the odd weekend in Europe, I feel like it was the first time I switched myself off since long before I moved to France. It was a triumph of early nights, early mornings, no emails and book after movie after book.
But today it was back to emails, back to curating news, writing interviews, proposing features, updating social media, organising calendars et al. In short, overloaded multitasking whilst attempting to concentrate and not be lured into the mass of unnecessary information that is the internet.
Today was interesting to me because it was the first day back at work since I have officially been “off” Facebook. A decision I made early in December because of the sheer amount of time I seemed to be wasting on the bottomless pit of ‘I blinked’ information. I have frequently shared information akin to ‘I blinked’ so I am in no way excluding myself from that observation, I just decided that if I blink and anyone really needs to know about it, I will inform them myself.
Working from home, when home is on the other side of the world to the office, is a pretty good determinate of ones self-motivation. Paris starts its day circa 7pm here in Melbourne, giving one seemingly endless opportunities to waste their own time before anyone comes online to notice. I feel like I can say things like that because I am motivated and I do get my work done and hopefully my bosses agree.
All that said, I know first hand how difficult it can become to manage time when you suddenly have so much of it, and I’ve come to a realisation that the less obstacles to efficiency in your way, the quicker and more insightfully you can put together your thoughts. Obviously Facebook was the first thing to go, followed by windows of time in which I answer emails, and times of the day set aside for writing – with no music, internet or mobile phone.
I know I sound like a self-important wanker now, but I am willing to wear that.
I also kicked Facebook because I want my family and friends to have my full attention, and I also want to have something to talk about when we catch-up. I am officially done with going out and socialising with other people’s iPhones. Call me old-fashioned but I find it really rude when you are sitting at a table with someone, attempting to have a conversation, and they can’t tear themselves away from their mobile-optimised notifications page.
I understand that social media has become a powerful tool for time-centric marketing and as a way not to ‘miss out’ on anything ever again, but when people are constantly trawling social media to find something more interesting to do – and then check-in to – it makes you wonder why they bothered catching up with you in the first place. That was the rant part of this musing, you will be pleased to know the rant is over.
All these thoughts came from reading an article entitled “Recovering from information overload,” which suggested that always-on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity and making us unhappy. Ironically, I received an email from The Outnet as I was reading it, and ended up looking at a selection of discounted ankle boots before I realised I had forgotten to finish the article. Case in point.
“We tend to believe that by doing several things at the same time we can better handle the information rushing toward us and get more done. What’s more, multitasking—interrupting one task with another—can sometimes be fun. Each vibration of our favorite high-tech e-mail device carries the promise of potential rewards. Checking it may provide a welcome distraction from more difficult and challenging tasks. It helps us feel, at least briefly, that we’ve accomplished something—even if only pruning our e-mail in-boxes. Unfortunately, current research indicates the opposite: multitasking unequivocally damages productivity.”
As far as I’m concerned, they hit the nail on the head. Social Media is the ultimate tool for procrastination, wasting time, avoiding important deadlines or challenging work. I’m not by any means suggesting a withdrawl from all such things will make you more productive, but I have noticed that now, when I wish to procrastinate, I read through the articles on my Google Reader, hang out the washing or seem to exhibit other behaviours that make me more informed and/or organised.
2011 was my year of information overload. Too much information, not enough authenticity. Whether it be rolling over in the morning to check Facebook – before one has even showered or had coffee – or having a Twitter conversation with someone you then don’t speak to when you see them in a bar. What has the world come to?
My attention is thoroughly fragmented and I no longer see as much value in social media as I once did. Instead I am hoping 2012 will be the year of phone calls, personal emails and remembering peoples birthdays without a mobile-optimised notification page.
