GTD for writers
I’ll admit it: everything I do, I do it for my fiction. I honor writing as the art with the biggest powers, when considering its effects, and the degree of intimacy, elevation and sometimes “possession” it grants (writing, in its finest hour, becomes invisible, the words stop being “black boxes” with a meaning inside and become something similar to music). (more…)
The mall zoo: reflections on the divided mind
Going to a mall on Saturday is not precisely my idea of fun, but that’s exactly what I did the other day, obeying a call of duty. The experience, in any case, was very worthwhile as a sociological experiment; in our society, where everybody goes to the same places at the same time, there was a very picturesque crowd gathered there, rivers of people through the halls, a lot to see as I was in my scientific mood.
I had never realized before to what extend a place like that divides our attention. Everything conspires against a united mind, everything is flash, buzz, dispersion. Observing my fellow humans there (which to me -and I know I’m weird here- were more interesting than the furious consumerism), I noticed in their attention, the following simultaneous divisions (I would normally have been only pissed off, but, like I said, I was in a scientific mood):
- Consciously being watched: malls, there is no doubt about it, are the modern interaction spaces. Some people even call them the new temples. Many people go there just to feel that they are a part of something. Watching and being watched has an essential role in the mall’s life cycle. You don’t simply acquire things: you watch and get ideas, set examples and precedents, favor serendipity… Inside the temple, it is acceptable to watch and being watched. We all become brothers in consumption.
- Disperse attention: different as they might be, a mall is always some kind of dome where you are bombed with an intense load of stimulus. Perceptive attention is on stake, and a lot of contrary forces struggle for our attention at the same time, using any resource at hand: color flashes, muzak, a guy in a suit, a car on top of a column… and above all this: etcetera.
- Walking: the basic unit of movement, from point A to B, using both legs alternative, gets obstructed, detoured or stimulated by the mall’s permanent and ephemeral architectures. The consumer shows all kind of undetermined pauses, of unpredictable effects for fellow walkers.
- Lateral stimulus: it is easy to collide in a crowded mall. The chances are you usually walk ahead, but you would die before missing the action happening in all those lateral shop windows. As a result, the step goes in one direction and the eye in another.
- One’s own train of thought. And yet, could you believe it?, some people still find the time to have a thought of their own, in addition to all the rest. Or a slice of thought at least. You can read it in their faces. It usually lasts very little, but it introduces a new uncertainty factor in the equation.
The mixture of those elements produces a typical walking style, and is also a prove of the versatility of human mind, which can run single, serial, laser-like processes (100% of attention focused on one direction), and also simultaneous, parallel, infinitely atomized ones (like here). Maybe you are a mall animal and this post feels to you like trying to teach piano to Beethoven; but don’t forget that the things that we are more used to are precisely the easiest to forget…
How do you feel about those “temples”? Do you (really) like them? Do you enter them with a preset plan (and stick to it)? Or do you just let yourself go? Any alternative of massive social space?
Honor your unconscious
Only extreme ignorance or arrogance can lead to believe that one fully controls one’s behavior. To begin with, we are alive beings, and we don’t know what life is: scientists can describe its parts or modify its working, but they cannot explain life. What I am going to discuss here is Carl Gustav Jung’s basic ideas on the unconscious, and you may agree with them or not, but one fact is already undeniable: the unconscious exists. (more…)
How to become optimistic with very little effort
I have a retarded mind: I very often go through the best ideas in books and posts without noticing them right away. They usually become some sort of “seed” in my head and take 3, 4 days to fully grow, without me having the least intention to do anything about them. And then one day, as a flower that opens after a delicate nurture, I say: “wow”, and do something about it.
Writing the successes of the day was one of those great ideas. Simple, non-coded, very little time-consuming, it pays off in a way that is almost scary. (more…)
Flowing with the workflow
As a product of a typically non-productive culture (sorry for the tongue twister), I have found a very useful tool for implementing the GTD method in monitoring workflow interruptions. The first thing I noticed was (more…)
Admiration is healthy (and powerful, too…)
When I was in my twenties, I used to go to the movies every weekend with a friend of mine. It would be fair to say that he was the one who taught me the real art of watching films, the art of really considering them and learning from them.
In spite of that, he wasn’t precisely a person of the enthusiastic type, (more…)
What to do with yourself when you’re mad
Here is the analogy that one of my teachers used to describe the human brain: he lifted his right fist and said: “this is a lizard’s brain”. Then he (more…)
“May you have a good life”
Inspirator #1
I recently heard the story of an actor from a small town in the country who moved to the capital in order to promote his career. At first, he tells, everything in the city was so new to him, that, whenever he entered a subway car, (more…)
Advertising - a personal experience
I remember my amazement as a kid when I was told about the presumed mechanic of advertising. The idea behind, as explained to a children, was that creating an association between this or that admired person, and a certain product, would make us go to acquire such product in a rush.
I also remember that my immediate, pure impression as a child, was that such a reasoning was, to say the least, defective; (more…)
Reach for the moon, but start with your (two) shoelaces
In “Getting Things Done”, David Allen affirms that the size of projects does not matter (for those who are not familiar with the GTD methodology, Allen defines “project” as any desired result that requires more than one simple action-i.e. a “pack” of actions with a defined purpose), and in terms of logic, he is right. Everything in his book is rigorously logic. But it makes me think of certain Zen masters. (more…)