Sensory deprivation
Ethan Kaplan
concept of sensory deprivation, and introducing stimuli into a
deprived state.
Basically I read this article about sensory deprivation chambers and
I was thinking about how oversaturated I am with information and
cognitive simulation throughout the day, so much so that I'm always
operating in this state of panic that I'm missing something critical.
Operating in a semi-panic while constantly trying to focus on a lot
of things doesn't work well. This article mentioned that while in a
sensory deprivation chamber, forms of senses could be introduced and
their cognition would be enhanced because of the state of hyper-
focus. Like language tapes, etc.
Thinking about this, I posit a way to do this with electronic
information, focusing your zone of perception on one thing at a time.
Anyhow, I'm interested to see what people think. I've been getting
very tired lately of trying to focus on so many things at once, but
can't mentally sever one of them.
Ethan
Jeff Kenton
Instead, I started only capturing "stuff" that pertains to my short list of current, active projects and commitments.
Soon after that, the boatloads of ideas that would likely never incubate beyond someday/maybe fell away and I could focus more closely on the "here and now." It has reaped immediate gains in my mood and energy level.
It's kind of fun to think about pie in the sky things, but trying to capture them all was counterproductive for me. YMMV.
Jeff
---snip---
Basically I read this article about sensory deprivation chambers and
I was thinking about how oversaturated I am with information and
cognitive simulation throughout the day, so much so that I'm always
operating in this state of panic that I'm missing something critical.
---snip---
--
A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs.
-- Mark Twain
teri.p...@gmail.com
all that logical thinking. You need to have activities that focus on
the body and those that focus on the imagination. Personally, I'd
recommend fly fishing ;) Gets you out of town and into the country,
gives you a nice workout and lets you think like a fish for a change.
I've talked to folks who've been in the I.T. world for many years and
finally burned out completely. There are just too many things to learn
and stay current on. I have times at work when I just go blank. I've
had too many problems to work through and things shut down for a bit.
I'm getting older so it doesn't surprise me for it to happen. I'm
trying to move towards a lifestyle where I can minimize the amount of
computereze I need to know and have the time to just enjoy thinking
about life in general.
Find a way to give yourself some space, a time when you aren't being
bombarded with stuff. Make that time the most important time of the day
and don't let anything interrupt it.
Matt Helm
> I've talked to folks who've been in the I.T. world for many years and
> finally burned out completely.
> There are just too many things to learn and stay current on.
often too many irons in the fire. The GTD philosophy of getting items
collected so that they are off your mind doesn't always work. Many times
I have to track multiple targets. A weekly review is too late and my Next
Actions run two or three pages.
> I have times at work when I just go blank. I've
> had too many problems to work through and things shut down for a bit.
idea what I wa working on. Once I forgot my name for about 15 seconds.
The scariest was once while driving, using a cell phone to make sure some
equipment was being shipped, and looking up an account number at the same
time. (I was on an isolated stretch of road, no other traffic) I had
been putting in
a lot of hours and not getting much sleep.
Suddenly, I couldn't use my arms or legs. It was like my brain couldn't handle
all the load and decided to disconnect some parts...
Matt
Chris Thompson
A few weeks back I realized I was so oversaturated with information
that I could no longer even parse out the good info from the bad. I
was overwhelmed, buried under the latest horrific news nugget to come
out of CNN or some other news giant, and feeling like the world around
me was just disintegrating into chaos.
And so, I decided to go on a diet. I'm cutting out media for the month
of November. I wrote about in a blog post at http://cthompson.com/
What's funny is, I've read GTD twice. I know that it will work for me.
But I've always found some higher priority distraction. Too distracted
to organize, that's just a double scoop of sweet sweet irony.
I actually have been doing this since October 28th. No IRC, no TV, no
random web surfing, no radio in the car (since I tend to gravitate
toward NPR). I canceled my World of Warcraft subscription for the
duration.
I work in tech, so there are things I haven't been able to give up.
Email, for one, which is how I read this thread (Yes, I should have
unsubscribed from lists, but this is low enough bandwidth that it's
not a big deal, and it's actually about the things I want to
accomplish in November.)
Also, my employer is spread out in just about every time zone around
the world, and it's not uncommon for me to be in discussions with
people in the US, Bangalore, Brussels, Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere, all
at the same time. We live and die by our IM, so as much as it would
make sense to unhook from my IM client, I simply can't do it and still
be able to do my job.
Even six days in I can feel a difference. I still struggle with web
based news. I have found myself reading through my feeds on bloglines
several times. It's just reflexive during long conference calls. And,
as a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals, it's been impossible for me to
detach fully from television here in the first season they've done
well in 15 years, so I do watch football on sundays.
But I can feel a definite difference. I'm not being inundated by news
of horrible murders, mass devastation, and people throwing their kids
off a pier. I feel lighter, more positive.
I even have so much extra time, I'm going to spend Saturday organizing
to get GTD in full swing.
David even says that GTD is designed to remove the burden of your
tasks from laying heavy on your mind, but that doesn't mean we should
be filling it up with other crap.
------------------------
Chris Thompson
Chris
think one of the solutions for me is to get a new job. My company has
been downsizing and I've had more and more dumped on my plate. I've
always worked alot of hours, but now I have a baby and my wife is
working more hours too... I've heard that there are people who only
work for 8-10 hours a day...
David Douthitt
> My company has
> been downsizing and I've had more and more dumped on my plate.
recognized. I worked for a company that had a good set of system
administrators - when they decided to let go the email admin and the
UNIX admin (and previously, the computer operator) - which, at that
company, cut the admin staff in half. Three positions - and no
replacements. The remaining staff is heading fast towards burn-out.
Sigh. What a waste of some good people.
teri.p...@gmail.com
"As a nation we are rediscovering that intellectual exercise is not the
only necessary part of a satisfying life. We are rediscovering that
thought is an activity which occurs above and below the neckline. We
are finding out that the body is a partner in the thinking process.
Mental and manual exercise together shape happy lives.
Much of our thinking, we might say, is actually done with our hands. We
can discuss an object with someone for an hour, but if we let him hold
the object in his hands, his understanding of it will be immediately
more comprehensive. In short, we need to get the physical feel of
things--a factor that is frequently lost in a conventional education."
Calvin Rutstrum in The Wilderness Cabin
Since that was written in 1961, I guess we really haven't learned much.
It's not just I.T. that is trying to get by with fewer people. And I
don't see things getting any better in the future.
brownstudy
printed out and re-read every couple of months. It's about consuming
what we process. When we don't process what we consume, we grow fat, we
grow tired, and we grow frustrated.
Jeanette Winterson - Journalism - The Guardian - 2002 - New Year
"We eat too much, we drink too much, we have too much stuff, too many
stresses, too many things to do. Ours is a society endlessly consuming
without the energy to process what we consume.
"Life has to be processed, or it lies in rotting heaps of discarded
emotions and unfinished desire. Talk to anyone for half an hour, and
once past the platitudes, you come face to face with a mound of
frustrations and left-over business. The therapy boom thrives on
left-over business, and whilst I am not against therapy, I feel that we
could all do more for ourselves if we understood the simple principle
of processing what we consume.
"Energy cannot be lost - it can only be transformed. We convert food
into heat and strength and movement - if we have too much, we store it
as fat. In a world that bombards us with sensory input, what do we do?
If we can't slough it off, our minds store it just as our bodies do -
as restlessness, as misery, as all the discontent that clogs modern
life."
http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=142
Bryan Ewbank
it's not obvious from the quote, the article starts and ends talking
about needing more sex to stay young...
Now, may the /. effect begin :-)
On 11/8/05, brownstudy <brown...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The following column by the novelist Jeannette Winterson is one I've
> printed out and re-read every couple of months. It's about consuming
> what we process. When we don't process what we consume, we grow fat, we
> grow tired, and we grow frustrated.
>
> Jeanette Winterson - Journalism - The Guardian - 2002 - New Year
>
Mike Brown
Vicki Brown
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/11/whos_in_control.html
--
- Vicki
ZZZ
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Vicki Brown
>Suddenly, I couldn't use my arms or legs. It was like my brain couldn't
>handle
>all the load and decided to disconnect some parts...
entitled "The Importance of being Imperfect". It's a first-person article by
a woman named Mary Kay Blakely whose "unrealistic expectations and constant
worry" (at an overworked high-pressure job) put her into a nine-day coma.
The article is an excerpt from her book, "American Mom", copyright 1994,
Algonquin Books. (I haven't read the book).