There’s a song by Rollins Band called Disconnect. Good ol’ Hank Rollins sings these lyrics:
Too damn bad if at the end of the day the only thoughts
In your brain are all the things that they say, what a waste
Too damn bad if at the end of the line you got no idea
What’s on your own mind, you got no one to blame but yourself
Too much to know, too much to see,
It might mean something to you but it’s nothing to me
It’s just another ad for someone’s version of how they think it should be
I want to pull it out
I wanna break it all down, I wanna pull it out
Disconnect myself, disconnect myself
I wanna see it go down, disconnect myself
Rollins Band came out with that song in 1994. It’s from the album Weight, which also features the song that you might know Henry from due to its popularity as an MTV video, Liar. Disconnect is an honest opener, and for me, Hank is one hell of a straight shooter. He speaks, sings, screams and shouts, directly.
I find myself thinking of that song often when I reach a saturation point with the increased connectivity of today — email, IM, tweets, Skype, phone calls, RSS and Flickr. Those are my roads to connectivity. I keep them relatively small.
It has been a topic of interest for a while now: Getting Things Done. Productivity, connectivity and distraction are the staples of work life. We’re meant to be productive but are distracted by our continuous and always-on state of connectedness. There are plenty of methods out there that detail states of mind, define chunks of time, lists of items for attack and step-by-step, to-the-letter how-tos on how to get your (work) life in order.
This isn’t one of them. It’s a sharing of how time is divided here — our daily methodology in tackling the beast of a workday.
The short answer: discipline and focus.
The long:
I’m not on IM. Occasionally I am, but only by a work request. Otherwise, I’m not a chatter. Skype and the expansion of the studio has changed this a bit, but generally I stick to work only.
Email is best as it provides something to reference, especially if you have details that need to be read and remembered for later. However, with the growing pile of emails that emerge day-to-day like a beast that taunts you with its sheer prowess, it’s becoming the beast on my back some days. I hear and read “Inbox zero” so often these days that I realize that email is failing somehow. It is no longer as effective. We no longer pick up the phone to connect to someone directly and immediately. It is a passive and sometimes, a passive-aggressive, form of communication that is chance, hope, a lack of responsibility and demands rolled into one.
A phone call serves all other needs. A phone call is classic and direct. As a teenager, it was all I had. I didn’t have an email account until I was 20, and those were the Pine/Telnet days. I’m beginning to like voice a lot again. In fact, Skype has won me over in bridging the gap between not having to pick up a device that may be causing brain cancer and defining a user experience that is tied somewhat physically to a computer of some kind and a wi-fi connection. I like having a defined state of mind — when I’m working, I’m working.
Early mornings are very important to me as that is when I’m being physical. As in either out cycling or bouldering at the gym. This serves a huge purpose: I need to wake up and clear my head. Other people have coffee, cigarettes, a newspaper — I have miles ridden, calories burned, grades climbed, energy expended and endorphins released. Physical activity focuses the mind sharply. An activity that requires concentration jump starts everything. If I’m not physical, I feel it — I’m less effective, less awake, less sharp. Sluggish of body is sluggish of mind.
Days are generally defined as two parts: before lunch and after lunch. Lunch is important. It defines my day a little better knowing that I have a chunk of time carved out to stop, disconnect, step back or to work towards to finish, complete or be done with, before or after.
When possible, I group all calls (conference, group or otherwise), meetings and anything where I’m not actively working, back-to-back or generally very close to each other. This way, my day isn’t broken up into little chunks. I can focus and produce effectively without having to worry about a call disrupting my workflow. This is a little harder when you’re handling many things at once and clients have their own schedules, but generally I aim to have them grouped.
Focus. This is really the simplest and most common sense thing I can think of when it comes to work — the ability to focus. It doesn’t mean that you have distractions open. Our techno-ADD minds have an itchy desire to see what’s going on “out there,” but let’s be honest, it’s nothing you can’t catch up on later. Technology has a way of giving us the feeling that we’ll miss the party, be the last one through the gate, be the odd one out. It’s a false feeling. It’s incredibly easy to lose focus when working in an industry that revolves around the very things we may be trying to avoid. I think of my friend, Shawn Hatfield, who runs a highly regarded mastering studio in Oakland called Audible Oddities. Email, phone and other distractions are off the table while he’s working — he has to listen. Mastering requires his undivided attention in getting his job done and to do it right. Many other professions are similar. Focus. Breathe. Do what you intend to do, and don’t stop until you’re ready to.
Disconnect starts with these two verses and they’re telling:
Don’t like to think too much, it makes me think too much,
It keeps my mind on my mind
Don’t wanna see too much, it makes me see to much
Sometimes I’d rather be blind
All the things that they’re saying & doing
When they pass me by it just fills me up with noise
It overloads me
I wanna disconnect myself
Pull my brain stem out and unplug myself
I want nothing right now, I want to pull it out
By Naz Hamid