Information Overload

Overall, these challenged opened my eyes to the somewhat unhealthy relationship I have with media, and that changes I plan on making will benefit me in the short and long-term. No more information overload for me. 

For this challenge I figured I’d talk to someone on the bus, someone who may have otherwise not have talked to anyone else that day. The elderly are often neglected and forgotten, so I took this opportunity to chat with the elder an that sits next to me almost daily on the bus. I started by simply making a comment about the weather that day, which eventually turned into us discussing the college strike as I had seen something in the news about it that morning. The first few moments of our conversation were definitely awkward, but I would have been surprised if they weren’t. Once we got past the five minute mark, conversation started to flow quite easily and my supposed to be seven minute conversation turned into an entire half hour, and only finishing because she had to get off. It was fulfilling to chat with someone so different from me, because this elder lady mentioned how it was hard to accept that society tends to forget about anyone over the age of 50, as they are no longer in their prime. Apparently I made her day, and quite frankly, that supposed-to-be seven-minute conversation has taught me to not be afraid of starting a conversation with someone just because they are different than me.

I like to know what is going on in the world. I like to be able to speak confidently about things and be up-to-date with what is happening in the world because it makes for easier conversation. For this challenge, I had to stay away from twitter for an entire day because that is where I follow lots of news pages and where most of the people I know go to discuss what is happening in the world. I think to date, this was the hardest challenge I have done so far because of having to stay away from what everyone else was talking about. I won’t lie, it was refreshing to not be “with the program” for once, and to be free of all the good and bad things going on in the world that day, but it was tough. I use these platforms as a way to communicate with others and to share with my friends what they may find interesting. Instead, I decide to look into things I wanted to see, like what kind of stretches I needed to do to improve my squat form, or how to create different origami pieces. It was empowering to know that everything I was seeing was because I wanted to see it, not because it was what was available. It was difficult in certain moments of the day to not be able to participate in certain conversations, but it was manageable. It was an information detox that I certainly needed, and will continue to do every few weeks to move away from what is trending, and move towards what is important.

           During the challenge, I had a bit of a hard time deciding which apps to delete and which to keep. Some things I use every once in a while, but I knew if I were to delete them, I would have to re-install them sometime in the future, so I kept those ones. But there were apps I had downloaded to use once, and that I had forgotten to delete after. This happened a lot with pictures as well. There were pictures of I had the intention of sending to a person, and never got around to deleting them. Another thing I noticed was my hoarding of conversations. I never seemed to delete conversations, even though I never go through and read them again. Those were the next things to go. Finally, after being inspired from deleting all of these things, I thought why not take it to the next level and get rid of some of the music on my phone that I never listen to. I like to listen to my entire music library on shuffle, but often find myself skipping the same few songs every time they came on, so I went about deleting those as well. Over all, having that much more space on my phone for things that will have more value to me is a liberating feeling.  

http://www.investmentconversations.com/i-stopped-multitasking-you-should-too/

I am a self-proclaimed, expert multi-tasker. As someone who likes to sleep in, I like to think that I am quite efficient at getting ready with as little amount of time as possible. But after listening to this podcast, I started to doubt my abilities a little bit. Sure I am able to get ready in less than five minutes, but by focusing on one task at a time in the morning I might be able to shave some time off of my already short five minutes. I then got to thinking about the other ways I think I can multi task but fail at. Watching TV while also doing homework is a frequent occurrence, but I can never seem to focus on both at the same time, for obvious reasons. I also have the habit of listening to music while reading, which is also a bad idea. So to kick off this challenge, I started by changing my work habits a little bit. I logged out of all forms of social media on my computer, and turned off my phone and got to work. Whenever I felt overwhelmed by the work I was doing, I found myself itching to log into Facebook, instead of facing the task at hand. This was my way of thinking I was “multi-tasking” when I was actually just looking for an excuse to take a break from my work. It was challenging to remind myself throughout the day to focus on the task at hand, but not impossible. I noticed that I was much more productive and got more work done a lot faster when I focused one thing at a time, instead of many things at once. I look forward to the next challenges!