How to Manage Your Attention with Linda Stone [VIDEO]
May I have your attention please? - Linda Stone - SIME 09 from Ayman van Bregt on Vimeo.
Quotes of note from Linda Stone:
"You can't possibly manage your attention unless you manage your breath."
"Today if your company isn't selling trust, protection, meaning and quality of life you're probably not going to resonate."
"More and more we're using Twitter to filter and search in new ways."
I believe this keynote ought to be required watching for leaders of all stripes. Special thanks to Paul Salamone - comedian in Berlin, former business partner and karaoke maniac - for sending the video my way.
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A cure for email apnea (a concept Linda explains in the video). Check it only once a day, unhook from your inbox.
How to manage your attention:
It's not a tool. It's not a product. It's not a service.
It's a practice.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Reader Comments (5)
Wow. Yes. The overwhelm that I feel when checking email lately (even though I only check it once a day) is ridiculous. There is just SO MUCH. And how do I respond to all of the demands for my time?
It's ironic the love/hate relationship I have with technology. I'm sitting here watching this on my iPad, and I love how tactile and private it feels. I can see why it's been such a successful product, especially now that I'm connecting it with the security and quality of life that we're looking for after decades of giving everything only our partial attention.
I know about email apnea first hand. I'm a programmer, and I would often take a break during my work day only to realize "I haven't been breathing!".
Thanks for sharing the video. The future looks bright!
Eric
I can't wait to watch the video when I have some downtime this weekend. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, along with working on being more in my body, even when I'm doing really cerebral work (which is often). While it isn't possible for me to cut down on email at my day job, it's something I'm working with as I grow my own business. I want this business I'm creating to be infused with mindfulness, and I'm sure that being constantly engaged in the process as I grow it will help it to become just what I've envisioned. Thank you, Gwen.
I forget to breathe, especially breath deeply, all the time. Yet all it takes is seeing the word to remember the action. Thanks for the reminder!
On a side note, for those who only check email once a day, I'm wondering if there is consensus regarding the best time of day to schedule that check-in...
Great blog, Gwen.
What's most fascinating to me about this is that, even without all the technology, focusing the mind and the breath was the primary concern of the original ancient Yoga sages. Apparently they had the same problem back then.
As you may know, we've got a great online discussion of the 2500 year old Bhagavad Gita going on at Elephant Journal. In my last blog, Gita Talk #5: Sublimely Simple, Profound and Livable, I expressed the meaning of the Gita in three sentences. One of those three was:
FOCUS THE MIND.
This is also the entire subject of the Yoga Sutra. It's true that some commentators interpret :"Focus the Mind" to be entirely about reaching some other-worldly state of meditative bliss, and it's certainly about that, too.
But many modern commentators, particularly my favorite, Desikachar, in The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice, write about the Yoga Sutra as a guide to focusing attention, in a way that's exactly like what's in your video above.
See what I mean by fascinating?
Bob Weisenberg
ElephantJournal.com