Last night I completed the first of the Sab books. A bit of a cheat because I started it before but I'm counting it.
The book is Deep Work by Cal Newport and it has become one of the top 10 most important books I have ever done (done as audio but hard copy for reference now coming so that is how I know it's a game changer).
It will be another book that spawns 100 blogs.
One of the many areas Newport examines is the concept of social media in our lives and whether it is an overall benefit or not. I will write about this much, much more in the coming weeks in relation to my own circumstances.
The general premise though is that there is a test for everything to see whether it is worth having/benefiting your existence overall.
Newport argues that we have many things in our lives that we justify being there simply because we can see or have seen (even worse) in the past a benefit for this. The other reason we keep hold of many things is FOMO.
Deep work examines the concept of assessing things that take up a great part of our time and probably mort importantly, our attention, to see if the benefit outweighs the disadvantage. Probably a bit like assessing whether I should take an X-Ray of a patient or not, risk vs benefit.
Running along side this is the now well proven fact that attention is a precious and limited commodity which, when repeatedly interrupted, is lost but even worse than that, over time and constant interruption the skill to concentrate deeply and reach a level of real quality of work can also disappear.
This is a disaster and if true (and I totally believe it is) is something that we are not only doing to ourselves but teaching our children. At least we, and here I mean me - 45 in a couple of weeks, have the memory of a place where large parts of our time were secluded and even bored to allow our minds to wander and wonder. Those days for most are gone.
Imagine a queue at the till in the shops today to buy more plastic tat for the kids and paper to wrap it in (more ebeneezer xmas ranting tomorrow - spoiler). You are looking at waiting 2-3 minutes, what next.
Look up, look around and chat to people next to you or see the lights or smiles or anything good or..
Take out the phone, check a list, email, status or app.
Almost always number 2.
Today I rode the bike with Louis. Really, really hard in the wind.
We bailed out of our 60 miler and cut it to 42 for a coffee and panini at our favourite place. It was really busy.
I had to sit close to a guy I had never met who was drinking espresso and making lists.
Time to get out the phone to "surf" and therefore not have to engage with a potential "coffee shop weirdo".
Except , at the moment I don't have a phone, well I do but it is just a phone.
So we spoke and it was great. He studies language, he was really interested in my accent and how it has softened in 20 years in England and how my kids can do a mean Scottish imitation. It was a joy to speak to him and I'm recounting it to you now.
The alternative was Facebook or BBC sport. Limited joy there.
The bike was really hard today. I have had more fun. But sitting here am I glad we did our 42 miles in constant wind and effort. Yes I am, come July that will pay both of us back x 10.
Was I sorry I didn't have a phone in the coffee shop to hide behind. No.
I can recount some benefits the explosion of social media and interruption technology has bestowed upon me but if I weighed it up against disadvantage honestly.....
.......lets play that game over the next few weeks.
Observe and report.
Blog Post Number: 1167
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