Just like the popular TV ad where events happen almost in real-time and everything is sooooo 12 seconds ago, our national attention span and appetite for personal growth and development is numb; if not altogether atrophied.  And you know what?  That really is nothing new, is it?

Resistance to change seems to be one of our most durable human qualities, and lately it has been abusing steroids.  Meanwhile, the pace of change gets faster and more complex by the minute.  Our national dialogue should be around adapting to the demands of change, not looking for the next slick slogan to compartmentalize and insulate ourselves from reality.

I have been collaborating on a research white paper for over a year, and recent edits stripped almost every reference to change.  You may be surprised to know that I concur with these deletions, and the reason is that “change” is so battered and bruised at this point that it is ineffective.  It is counter-productive, and that’s shameful, because things continue to change all around us.  

I titled the book I wrote on organizational change Chasing Change[2] because I don’t believe, regardless of how hard one tries, that “catching” change is possible for more than a nanosecond.  That does not mean that we should fold our tent and adopt a fatalist attitude about it.  The challenge demands even more from us, and those we lead.  Call it whatever works for you—ignore it at your peril.

The month of January was a fun time of travel, reflection, and new experiences.  A trip to England to deliver a workshop on Change Leadership provided an opportunity to experience the beauty of the English countryside and the warmth of its people.  London provided such rich history and charm.  The elegance and reverence of Westminster Abbey is etched in our memories forever.  And yes, the Thames River was of obvious interest, starting as a spring in Northern England and becoming the mighty estuary reaching the sea.

All along the river are signs indicating the “Thames Path”.  And that got me thinking…how am I doing on my own path?

Three days after our return from England, we headed for Cocoa Beach, Florida.  We spent two weeks relaxing, visiting with friends, exploring the Kennedy Space Center, playing golf, and shopping.  I actually worked only 11 days in the month, and experienced more time off in one month than I have ever had.

So…what’s the lesson?  It is twofold:

1. I am reluctant to admit that it took me a full week just to unplug and start enjoying things.  In this era of 24X7 availability—thanks to the technology we have—it can be difficult to do so.  And, if I am truly transparent here, I would admit that I checked almost every email alert or text that came in during the time off.  I am usually very responsive, so not responding to some emails is hard for me.  I suppose the truly enlightened among us would just turn the iPhone off, or better yet, leave it at home.
2. When you have this many consecutive days to glance at emails you may get a different perspective.  What I realized as I forced myself to be minimally, or non-responsive (because I was on vacation) is that so much of that email volume is really unnecessary.  We all have junk email that we delete, and block.  However, I also had to seriously question how many of the newsletter subscriptions, research posts, and knowledge sharing emails I truly need in my professional and personal life.  Deeper questions emerged as to why I believe I need this content, and what I actually will do with it, are certainly worthwhile to ponder.  Mass deletions of emails provided me the perspective to unsubscribe from over 60 different content providers, and early indications are that my email volume has dropped noticeably, and I haven’t missed a thing!  I would invite you to consider that bit of reflection for yourself.  It’s empowering!

I am reading one of those books that stops you in your tracks and gently, but firmly suggests that you spend some time reexamining your values around money and what constitutes “enough” in  your life.  After hearing Lynne Twist speak at the Coaches Training Institute Summit several months ago, and experiencing the screech marks from the ideas presented, I was motivated to read her book The Soul of Money.  In it she details the myth of scarcity and  the opportunity we have to assume a perspective of abundance instead.  Lynn suggests we have bought into three lies that have become unchallenged beliefs for many of us:

1. There isn’t enough,
2. More is better, and
3. That’s just the way it is.

As one who personally entered the hallowed halls of the Baby Boomer segment this summer, I get it that as children our parents were forced to do more with less due to the Great Depression.  As young children and adults sandwiched between two world wars and the collapse of our financial system, they had to find abundance in the simple things, and rest in the fact that what they had was sufficient.  Clearly, some souls didn’t survive that era due to the enormous pressures they were facing. Yet for the survivors, part of the abundance that pulled them through these tough times was the value of family and the proximity of loved ones.  As federal government programs stabilized the economy and the engine of commercial prosperity began to crank up, we wanted more because the advertising that supported our favorite television shows (My Three Sons, Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy, etc.) was telling us that we deserved more. We wanted our children to have more than we did as kids and the close proximity of family began to erode as distance no longer became an obstacle in the chase for prosperity.  Corvettes and muscle cars and rock and roll music lyrics tickled our minds with freedom and “if it feels good do it”.  Our kids, by and large, lost the abundance of love that came from those Sunday dinners with Grandma and Grandpa, and the annual get-togethers for adventures with our cousins.

Pursuit of “stuff” takes more time, not to mention the time to maintain all these material possessions.  To be cool and like everyone else, we had to have the latest and greatest, and the engineering community complied with our wishes to drive planned obsolescence to increase the horsepower of that economic engine.  We never wanted our kids to lack for anything, so we robbed them of the opportunity to see what abundance really is—the bottomless capacity of our loved ones around us, and the satisfaction of what we stood for as authentic souls.

As Lynne Twist said, taking a stand is so much more powerful than taking a position because taking a position creates opposition by its very nature.  So…where are you in your journey? Are you perplexed because the latest electronic gadget (that you haven’t yet learned the full features of yet) has been eclipsed by innovation that brings you even more features for the same price you paid six months ago?  What’s enough for you? How connected are you to your core values?  Have you gotten so caught up in the myth of scarcity that it’s negatively affecting your health and your relationships? What stand will you take?

I have many favorite musicians, but among the top tier include David Crosby and Graham Nash.  I recall one of their concerts where Crosby was alone on stage with an acoustic guitar, playing and singing Joni Mitchell’s song “For Free”.  That song has a poignant picture embedded in it from Joni’s perspective in a limo at a stoplight.  She talks about the fame and fortune, yet she looked out the window at the “one man band, by the quick lunch stand, who was playing real good for free.”  She continues by thinking she probably should get out of the car and go over and sing along to his saxophone, and “maybe put on a harmony.”  As Crosby got to this line in the song, Nash stepped out of the shadows into the spotlight with Crosby and harmonized with him on the single word “harmony”.  Needless to say, that was a memory I will never forget.

 Harmony is an interesting concept if you think about it.  Some folks probably think it is a vocalist trying to hit the exact same note as another vocalist to have a uniform sound.  I suppose that may be harmony in its purest form, but quite frankly, there’s no character or texture to that kind of harmony.  What makes a harmony beautiful is the fact that it isn’t pure!  The fact that each person brings their own unique pitch and representation of who they are to the sound is key—the blending of diverse voices is the synergy that can be created no other way.  I think about the first time I heard Crosby, Stills, and Nash sing “Suite Judy Blue Eyes”, and the incredible harmony generated by that trio.  You really don’t want everyone to sound the same, do you?

 So, let’s carry that same concept over to life in general.  Why, as humans, do we expect to have everyone else try to duplicate our voice in order to create harmony in the world?  If someone happens to think differently than we do, or have a different perspective, we can fall into the judgment trap and fail to respect their right to their own unique voice.  We may strive to create vocal harmony, but fail to create relational harmony.

Isn’t harmony really about the blending of those unique voices? Isn’t creating something completely magnificent by honoring and integrating the differences worth the extra time and respect necessary to attain it?

So…where do you proactively look for those unique differences instead of believing you are the tuning fork that everyone else should tune to?  We have to challenge ourselves to be disciplined enough to walk our talk.  And…oh, by the way…I’m not saying it’s easy by any stretch!

• An almost incapacitating feeling that you will never get everything done that is important to you
• A sneaking suspicion that your email inbox has developed an evil character and is bent on making you crazy
• Hesitancy and reluctance to check the home mailbox—where the important “snail mail” gets smothered by the weight of unwanted junk mail
• Being on vacation and checking email just to avoid the exploding inbox upon your return
• Shaking your head in dismay at the latest text or tweet that electronically stalks you with such important information as to where one of your friends just had a $4 cup of  coffee.

Yes, my friend!  If you resonated with any of the above symptoms, then it’s entirely possible you have….Digital Attention Deficit Disorder!  How in the world did we get here?  Let me explain…

In a 2006 white paper[1], IBM predicted that the world’s information base would double every 11 hours in 2010. In 2007, IDC published a report[2] with its findings on the “digital universe”.  IDC is a global provider of market intelligence for the information technology industry, and it has over 900 analysts sitting around thinking about the impacts of technology on our world.  Some of their study predictions for 2010 are eye-opening:

• Between 2006 and 2010, the information added annually to the digital universe will increase more than six times to just under a thousand exabytes (one exabyte = 1000 petabytes; one petabyte = 1000 terabytes; one terabyte = 1000 gigabytes)
• The overall global capacity for storing the data has not kept pace with how fast it’s being created since 2007.
• In 2007, You Tube hosted 100 million video streams per day.
• In 2007, more than a billion songs per day were shared over the Internet in MP3 format.

At the risk of contributing further to this dilemma, let me share one more term with you:  got “yottabyte”?  Wikipedia defines yottabyte as one quadrillion gigabytes!

So…what’s a person to do in the face of this wave of information?  How does one sort out what’s important from what is not necessary? How do you keep from getting crushed by the waves?

I’ve heard promises over the past decade of an “intelligent agent” –a software application that would be available to maintain parameters of the kind of information I am interested in and actively search and retrieve that information to my desktop.  There are certainly search engines galore these days that make it hard to remember retrieving information the old way.  But I keep waiting for this agent package to come along and save the day.

Seems to me that the only thing one can do in the face of all this data is to be really intentional about what I am trying to accomplish and the data I may need to support it.  How do I manage all this?  Here’s seven suggestions on becoming more intentional:

1. Set aside a specific time each day to manage email, and stay in email.  Resist the temptation to click on all those cool links that tempt you click your way into the time abyss.  If something is that attractive, make a mental note to come back to it during your research time.
2. Set aside another specific time for Internet research and following those links mentioned above.  Postponing the urge for immediate gratification will save you time and money.
3. Don’t open every email.  Some organizations you purchase from on the Internet will spam you daily with attractive offers.  If you don’t want to be tempted, just delete the email without opening it.
4. Unsubscribe.  A powerful process to get acquainted with.  Manage all those subscriptions to receive only emails and offers that you want.  Be proactive, not reactive.
5. When writing and responding to emails, be clear and be succinct.  Train those you communicate with to respond once with an answer by structuring your communication to be specific and to the point.  Sometimes it helps to underline or otherwise offset text to help the reader understand what you are looking for.  However, don’t put things in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS—the email equivalent of screaming at the other person.
6. If you are a Microsoft Outlook user, set up filters to automatically sort emails into folders that are time-based.  For e.g., some folders could be checked hourly, daily, or weekly. 
7. Delete or file an email when you read it.  Keep that inbox down to a manageable number.  It’s tiresome to go in and sort through 800-1000 messages, and it only invites further procrastination.  Trust me…I’ve been there!

The bottom line here is to use these wonderful tools to enhance your life by driving technology, rather than having it drive you. 

What has worked for you in staying on the apex of the data wave?  Happy surfing!

[2] IDC White Paper. “The Expanding Digital Universe:  A Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2010., March, 2007. P.1.

 Gregg Levoy states interesting facts with regard to the speed required to break the pull of Earth’s gravity, called escape velocity:

• 25,000 miles per hour to escape the pull of earth,
• 133,000 miles per hour  to quit Jupiter,
• 1,368,000 miles per hour against the sun.[1]

 So what is the speed required to propel ourselves from our normal state to make the personal changes that gnaw at our soul?  The required level of effort and motivation depends on several things:

•  The depth of need.  Some changes choose us and are the burning platform type—we have no choice but to jump or fry.  This level is not necessarily easy, but straightforward—we have to change.
• The number of options at hand.  Sorting through all the available choices can be a chore, and one has to be cautious not to get caught up in analysis paralysis while basking in the comfort zone.
• The level of personal courage and discipline we can summon on our own.  We may have the energy to push ourselves to a certain velocity, but it may not be enough to break the orbit that keeps us where we are.
• Our willingness to ask for help.  While independence is a noble trait, like anything else it can be taken to extremes and turn toxic.  Quite often, additional resources may be required to attain the necessary speed to leave gravity behind.

So…some questions for your consideration:

• Do you have a tachometer that tells you the capacity of your personal engine?  At what RPM do you red line? 
• What gear do you run in most of the time?  Can you shift with ease?
• At what level is the temperature gauge?  Do you overheat often, or remain cool?
• What kind of preventive maintenance do you do to ensure you are in prime running condition?
• Is your vision to become a cherished “classic”, or a relic destined for the junkyard?

 After all, it’s your choice to remain comfortable or follow your dream…