Dr. Greg Ketchum, 04/08/06
In doing research for this
morning’s segment I ran across
an article on Reuters that stopped me cold in that it challenged
a basic belief about the benefits of technology. Namely, that
technology has made our work lives easier.
However, this article reported on research
that showed just the opposite to be true. Talk about a mind blower.
Now on the face of it this makes no sense. I certainly feel that
technology enables me to get more done and saves me time. For example,
formerly I might have had to go to the library to do research whereas
now I can do my research on-line
So what’s really going on here? c Technology…
1. Is speeding everything up.
2. Bombards us with email, voice mail, cell phones, text messages & faxes
3. Increases expectations of what we should be able to accomplish
You know what I’m talking about and you know how it makes
you feel. The Day-Timer research captured it this way.
- “60% of workers say they always
or frequently feel rushed…”
- Those who feel extremely or very productive dropped from 84%
in 1994 to 51% today.
So that’s it. That’s the dark underside of the great
benefits of technology. We feel more pressured, hurried and are expected
to do evermore faster. This negative impact of technology is something
that we hadn’t counted on. In the end we’re stressed
out because we feel pressured to multitask and we try to do too much.
What can you do about it? Here are some suggestions…
- Try Uni-Tasking: That’s
right. Try the old way of doing one thing
at a time and doing it well.
- Set Realistic Expectations: Don’t stress yourself
out by setting unrealistic expectations.
- Build in Down-time: Make sure to give yourself some “down-time” everyday.
Set a time by which you will shut the laptop off. Read.
Finally, if all else fails spend time with your family or loved
ones. Have conversations, tell stories, share feelings. After all,
that’s what we did before all this technology arrived to make
our lives easier.
