The Campbell Academy Blog | Colin Campbell (224)

Exponential complexity/All life is overwhelm

In a conversation this week with a high-level medic who is training to be a consultant in Gynaecology, we were discussing the ability to “keep up”.

The person who I was speaking to (a relative of a relative) has a boss who has become quite well renowned for some extraordinary research in quite a short period of time, he had 4 journals published simultaneously and one of the most successful and high profile medical journals in the world.

The problem is that this creates attention and an extraordinary amount of attention.

The result of this is that time shrinks his ability to communicate and work and then his team dissolves (let alone quality time with family etc).

The man in question is currently on holiday with his family, far away, but my relative’s relative reports that he is answering texts and email messages everyday and pretty much all day.

This is the paradox of success and this is the overwhelm.

Worse still is the fact that we continually add increased burdens on our time and attention on an almost daily basis.

I walked up to the tram stop the other day in Nottingham to get on the tram and it will no longer accept my Mango card (I think it’s the equivalent to an Oyster card in London).

They had decided to phase out the Mango card which offered me cheaper tickets and instant access to the machine instead of spending time with a credit card trying to buy the ticket while the tram was coming.

Now it is app based and I had to download an app and make sure that I turned off the notifications that it wanted to send me and add my credit card details so that I can now buy my ticket at home in advance without using the machine.

That is another app added onto my phone that I don’t want.

Another way for the phone guys and the software guys to hook my attention when all I wanted to do was press my Mango card onto a sensor on a tram ticket machine.

So, it continues…

We think that we download an app because it saves us time, but what it does is, it drags us back into the digital world that we’re trying to stay away from to keep us sane.

You try to do something with the benefit of having huge amounts of patients by publishing scientific journals and they were contacted from everywhere in the world by people who are interested in their scientific journal.

All life is now overwhelm.

Even when you do find time to sit yourself in silence you feel guilty because you are sitting on your own in silence and not “achieving something”.

The information revolution is so far down the track now it is becoming less and less feasible or even possible to keep yourself away.

Success going forwards is likely to be owned by the people who can.