Is It Really That Urgent?
These days most of us have a Blackberry or iPhone glued to us.
Facebooking, Twittering, Playing Words with Friends, Responding To Emails Instantly, Shooting Text Messages Back And Forth etc etc.
Gone are the days of, if you were out at work and someone wanted to call you, they either had to wait till you got home or leave a message on your home answering machine and you would take care of it when you got back after a day’s work.
Today everything is instant.
We are busy talking, texting, playing games or surfing the net on our phones, they are usually right next to us always and when we’re doing something many of us have one eye on the subject and another peering at our phone to make sure we don’t miss any sort of alert.
This is the question I have, is it really necessary?
Sure great service is excellent and speaking to people quickly to get what ever it is taken care of is also the basis of great service but what would happen if we structured things a little bit differently?
What would it do for us?
For instance do we really have to get back to email straight away or for that matter text messages.
Does the instant approach to everything make us take a reactive approach rather than a proactive approach because we are always reacting to the beeps and rings of our phones.
What if we only answered emails at certain times of the day?
What if we only answered text messages at certain times of the day, say every hour.
What if we turned our phones off while we were concentrating on other tasks that required our focus.
What if we didn’t look at our phone again after a certain time in the evening?
What would it do for us?
It would give us a lot more time, that’s what!
Why? because we would start to own blocks of time in the day and I think after a while we would lose the need to always be thinking of someone to text, email or call when we really didn’t have too.
I feel that being busy on the phone makes some of us feel we have purpose, we are needed and we have stuff to do (almost important in a way) and this is a dangerous mindset to have, because it’s a hole that is never filled.
When we become defined by our busyness it that absolutely nowhere but exhaustion.
On the flip side it creates an expectation in others that deal with us, if we get back to every call instantly or they ring at 9.00 at night and we talk to them (which I do regularly) people/clients feel that this is the norm. They feel we don’t do much else than just sit around and wait for their calls.
So often people will think that’s what our expectation is also and there are no boundaries around how we do business or interact.
This is a delicate line I’m walking right now because I preach service and taking instant care of clients which I still am saying is a must however I think if we get smart about managing our phone time and take a close look at how many of us are actually driven by the phone (reactively) rather than us driving the phone then our lives will be different.
We would not only have more time to focus on other things but we would also be much more clear headed, we will feel much calmer.
Am I going too far to say it is an addiction epidemic many of us just don’t talk about, being absorbed by our phones, and if that’s taking it too far then I would say it’s getting very close to that.
What would happen if we didn’t answer every email straight away, probably nothing would happen.
What would happen if we only checked facebook twice a day, probably nothing would happen.
What would happen if we didn’t respond to text messages for a while until we finished what we were doing, probably nothing would happen.
And that’s just my point, nothing would happen, absolutely nothing.
Things would still keep going, people would wait for us to respond and it would make no difference at all.
The only thing that would happen is, we would feel better and have less anxiety around being driven by the bells and the beeps of our phones.
It’s sort of crazy really because we just create the expectation that busyness equals productivity when it’s exactly the opposite in most cases.
You are actually more productive and more efficient when you are less busy and or less reactive because you can think better, you can focus better and you feel better.
Phones are really important and I’m glued to mine but I guess the question here is, is it as necessary as we think it is?
Would love to hear your thoughts on this one?
Mat
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This is a great Hall Of Fame speech by Dennis Rodman. It’s interesting that even the most seemingly hardened people have deep emotions underneath it all.
Starts off slow but definitely worth watching!
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The Watch
I was with a man recently who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, this man owns a famous global company.
He is older in age and really down to earth.
The thing that intrigued me most was his watch.
It was worth about $50 (maybe a bit more 
).
It was just a normal sports watch and really quite basic, like the one in the picture.
Looking at him you can tell he would be reasonably wealthy but his watch was very understated.
It really got me thinking, actually I couldn’t stop staring at it because I see people with hardly any money wearing watches that are far more expensive than this one.
The reason why I couldn’t stop staring at it was the question I was asking myself, which was, why doesn’t he buy a more expensive watch?
This really made me think about the mindset of success and how things we think matter sort of don’t really.
See, here is a man worth lots of money wearing something that many would consider basic but he wears it for him.
It tells the time and I suppose that’s what a watch is meant to do, which suits him I guess.
He could pretty much buy any watch he wanted but that’s the thing, he doesn’t want too.
He is not defined by the things he wears, it doesn’t matter to him what people think of his watch because it works for him.
This was interesting to me because how many times do we do things because of what other people think?
How many times do we buy things that are good in the moment but maybe are not the best financial decisions long term because we think it will elevate our position in people’s minds.
How many times have we bought things for the look but maybe haven’t considered there maybe a lesser priced option that is more practical and understated which may be just as good.
How many times have we bought a feel good item that was more than what we could realistically afford, because of the brand, style or look.
Even though this man would have no idea that this watch got me thinking so much, the message that this simple watch sent to me was basically simple… It really doesn’t matter.
Nice things are great but they don’t make you who you are.
It’s a good reminder that being wealthy is who you are, rather than what you have
Are you defined by the things you have?
Mat
Total Inspiration
Come on everyone, let’s make this post like a library. Post videos, books, talks or anything else you think is inspirational, right here.
