It’s been an interesting past few days in the “life of Jon” and I thought I’d share some thoughts and observations that have come out of a few experimentations that I’ve done.

The overall objective and goal of these “self-experiments” was to take a hard look at WHAT I’m doing and WHY I’m doing it.  For those like me who live lives of constant motion (call it busyness and/or stress), you can understand how at times you feel like you’re great at the treading water part but you’re aiming away from the shore and land seems to look ever smaller on the horizon.  You are treading water like a champ.  But, where does that lead and what about when your body begins to weary?

So, all that to say, I’ve taken a bit of inspiration from outward and inward sources and decided to try things from different angles to get a better idea of what I may be doing right and what I’m doing wrong.

INFORMATION DE-TOX
Thanks to a recommendation out of a book I’m reading, I took the challenge of going ONE week with minimal to zero informational intake.  By that I’m referring to current events, news and the like.  Let me preface by stating that I’m a self-confessed information junkie.  I pride myself on the amount of RSS feeds I read through on a daily basis as if it’s some techie badge of honor.

So, for one whole week plus, I did NOT do the following:

1. I didn’t check my Google Reader (RSS Reader)
2. I didn’t listen to any talk radio
3. I didn’t watch any news on television
4. I didn’t read a single newspaper (this is a funny thing to state since I haven’t cracked a paper in years)
5. Number 4 above is silly.  More to the point, I didn’t read a single news website.

I took a week to let the brain “de-tox”.  A cleansing of the mind if you will.

The result?  It was hard the first couple of days.  Hey, I was addicted to information which, although I could probably give you some great justification, it was, for all intensive purposes – information for information’s sake.  A lot going in the mind to process but much of it were things that were completely UN-actionable.  “Ok, so I know A but 1) I can’t change or effect A and 2) it doesn’t help me with B or C.”

Did I miss anything?  I don’t think so.

What did I gain?  That’s an easy one – my sanity.  It wasn’t due to bad information going in it was just a matter of too much unimportant information that was clogging up the flow of the relevant information.  I was having a hard time focusing on anything well and the important tasks that should have had my attention were perceived as overwhelming which is a terrible and crippling state of mind.

You might say I got my groove back in a week.  No, it’s not some great epiphany and there’s no great high level science involved.  In fact, I could summarize this whole dialog with the simple word “simplify”.

AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY – For Now.
Another experiment that I failed was to reduce the constant flow of e-mail into my daily life.  It’s an odd state of things when the inner pull to click “Check Email Now” is something on the level of a narcotic addiction.  While I never broke out into cold sweats or rocked back and forth in my office chair – the idea of limiting my e-mail checking to two times during my word day has been a little too much.  I even tried starting at 6 and working my way down but I check it almost unconsciously whenever I have a spare minute.  I really need to fix that.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY
Is there a moral or point to this?  Maybe it’s more of a self-reflection posted on a public blog but on the oft chance that someone out there can identify or find a cool idea for themselves – here it is.  Do with it what you will but be gentle.

Thought for the Day:  “Stop thinking so much – you’ll wear yourself out.”

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