Many of us sense that it is harder than ever to prevent our quick-draw tongues from issuing thoughtless rebuttals, or to stop our rapid-fire fingers from typing or texting impulsive messages. These hunches are valid—it is getting harder to stifle our self-defeating communication urges. Here’s why.
Quick, Cheap, and Easy is not Enough
Jim interrupts a meaningful moment with his kids to respond to a trivial text message; Sarah hits reply all on a sensitive email message, upsetting dozens of colleagues; Bill’s phone vibrates throughout his anniversary dinner, causing him to lose his train of thought (he was saying something about love, happiness, something…); and Lynn can’t adequately focus on her boss’s instructions because new messages keep chiming in on her computer.
These distortions are symptoms of a major underlying problem…
Happy New Year
In 2012, a new blog entry will appear every Monday morning (central time zone) to give you some tools, tips, or ideas to start your week. In this first entry, we cover the three pieces of enduring good news about human communication. Here’s to a wonderful 2012. Happy New Year.
Getting Things Done in an Age of Distraction
Is it possible that we’ve created a working environment where countless distractions and trivial pursuits guarantee that we get less done—with increasing effort—each passing day? Recent research illuminates our contemporary struggle to harness our precious attention in an age of distraction and points toward a solution.