Are we too busy?

I am not the first one, and probably not the last, to comment on how busy our lives are. I don't see mine getting any quieter either. Some of the reasons I can identify are:

• The line between work and life is getting blurred more and more everyday. You are expected to travel over the week end and not think about it twice. When I was living in France, and that was a while back, it seemed easier then to separate them. There you don't have to feel guilty about 2 weeks vacation and I don't believe I have ever heard of a meeting taking place on a Saturday. Then again, it was a while back. Maybe if I was a better manager, there would not be any issues for me to go away for a long while. There are lots of methods out there to help you be more efficient, GTD being one of my favorite. Most of the ones I like mention that family time is important and if you do work extra hours, it seems you do not really do that much during that time. I even got emails on well-being to advice me on how to do well with the family; I believe they come from the health care provider to make sure we don't get sick so they can make their numbers.


• With the advance of new technologies, mainly the internet and all, we have so much information at our fingertips that we are becoming attached to it all. It is very hard now to unplug. I know quite a few people that have done to the darkside and have an iphone or a blackberry and cannot go anywhere without checking their toy at least every five minutes. There is just too much information for us to process. It is difficult, we have ways to filter the information coming to us but then we would also be restricting our knowledge of the world around us. I might know what I need to know today but who can say for sure what I need to know about tomorrow? There are only so many RSS feeds you can regularly check without it completely consuming your entire day. We are all empowered now, we can push information to more people than ever possible, but how do you choose what to read? What is a reliable source? How do you find it amongst all this huge mass of information?


• Seems to me in this age of outsourcing, where there are probably hundreds of people who can do your job for a lot less, where we can differentiate ourselves would be in innovation and original ideas. But you need empty space to get there, it is not possible to think while you are being busy. A wise person once told me it is not possible to rush innovation or creative thinking, you just need to let it happen. Where do we find the time to let it happen? Even my long commute is filled with podcasts and news so I can be aware of what is happening around me and learn about the things that might help me in my career. I am aware of them, but I rarely have the time to analyze them and try to create my own opinions. Then again, the more opinions I have, the less I might be inclined to access new ideas.


• I have to say the flow of information is making me worried about my son. I am sure I will be ok, after all I only have so many years before I can enjoy a retirement filled with physical activities and contemplation (all those things I do not have time for right now). But what about our children, the school programs are barely adequate for the world of today, they have no idea what to teach our kids for the world they will have to face. How do you teach innovation and creativity? Classes seem to be taking more and more of our kids time, they play even less than we used to. I fear for their sanity. What will years of study and no play, aggravated by constant competition and pressure for result about things he will probably never use, do to their mind? Will they be forced to conform to ideas that will no longer be relevant? I suppose education is a whole new subject I will probably feel like talking about later. As a last ironical thought, I cannot help smile at those TV programs that claim to empower you to go and play outside while hoping you will agree with them and keep watching because they promote appropriate behavior.

What kind of conclusions we can draw after all this? I am not sure I meant to have any, those are all ramblings after all. If nothing else, I think we need to schedule some time to slow down, some time to figure out who we are. Without knowing who you are, there is little that can be achieved. We need to connect with the world around us and with each other. We need to make sure we do not use technology in such a way that we isolate ourselves from the world while we fool ourselves into thinking we are connected. For instance, I know there might be lots of goods things about virtual worlds, but until they add your face in real time, I would rather bet on video conferencing.