I’m sitting in front of my computer with several Tasks That Must Be Done lined up on Today’s To-Do’s. None of them are what I’m actually doing right now…
Some urge in me tells me that I MUST clean out all extraneous emails first. You know, start with a clean slate and all of that. But the problem is… well.
I don’t have to tell you, do I?
The e-Distraction Pothole
As Americans, we know this place very well and we know what happens next. At least an hour, or two or three later, we will wake up in an e-induced fog wondering where the time went. It went down the drain with all the other hours spent here in the e-Distraction Pothole.
In the Positive Intelligence model, there are nine very distinctive entities called Saboteurs that get in the way of our making progress as individuals, and arguably, as a culture. In the United States currently, there’s a strong case to be made that we suffer as a group from two very strong saboteurs: The Hyper-Achiever and Restless.
Fun Bits about Saboteurs…
BTW: a client of mine who is fluent in French, looked up the word “saboteurs” and discovered that its derived from the French word for clogs – the footwear of choice for workers at the start of the industrial revolution. When the workers got angry with those in charge of the factories – they threw their shoes into the machinery – therefore “clogging” up the works and rendering the factory useless until management negotiated a better deal!
American Hyper-Achiever Addiction
Hyper-Achievement is baked into America’s cultural DNA: we can never be too busy in our country. Those who are not constantly “doing” are seen as weird, and often suspected of being lazy, clueless, or worse – chronic “under achievers”. We don’t take vacation days we’re entitled to, we take work home on the weekends, and if we start to get tired of this relentless hamster-wheel existence… we inject ourselves with more caffeine and crank ourselves right back into it. Even after we achieve our goals: the promotion, the award, the title – our satisfaction and contentment is short-lived. We are only as good as our last conquest.
Finally – Some Pushback!
It wasn’t until the pandemic shutdown that millions of us began to question and push back against the costs and stress of chronic hyper-achievement. Working from home may have been stressful at first, especially with school age children underfoot – but now, it’s difficult for companies to retain high quality personnel without offering at least a few hybrid options in the package.
Speaking of the pandemic – In 2022, close to 299 million internet users accessed the web from inside the United States, up from over 288 million in 2020.
Almost a third of Americans are online constantly.
The annual internet productivity survey released by website blocker and productivity application Stop Procrastinating, based in London and Berkeley, California, found that 68% of US workers are distracted by the internet while working.
As Americans, we may have traded in some of our Hyper-Achiever for the instant stimulation and distraction of Restless.
The Beauty of the Boring Bits
Caught in the Restless web is where I started in this post. Restless convinces me that in the process of whatever I am building towards, if I encounter any boring bits…I must be on the wrong track. This is a very weird belief right? You can’t escape the boring bits! Even if you hire them out to someone else, you’ll simply encounter a different set of boring bits. You could just ignore them, but that can blow them up into obstacles larger than they need to be. The boring bits are part and parcel of whatever needs to happen to bring your Project, Dream, Lofty Vision into reality, into completion.
But what would we do, as Americans, if we weren’t constantly online? We might realize that we have much more of a precious commodity – TIME – than we thought we had. How do we know?
The Blessing of a Blackout
Our neighborhood recently, as a result of a massive winter storm, lost our internet. We didn’t lose power, just the internet. For about 24 hours, my husband and I only had access to television via our small screen devices – and we had no access to email or the internet. At all. This situation taught me how much time I personally spend on the internet in a 24 hour period. And the many ways we might spend that time if we can be intentional about it. I finished two books, wrote for three hours (!) in my hardback journal, watched the birds at the feeders. In the evening, Rob got out his guitar and we sang songs for an hour or so. We enjoyed ourselves and each other immensely. Now, the plan is to spend one evening a week without internet! Can we do it?? Could you??
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“I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Kym Dakin as my Positive Intelligence Coach! Kym’s calm, steady guidance was really valuable. As I realized the impact this was having on my life, it was invaluable to be able to share what I was learning with someone who had experienced it. By identifying my main Saboteurs, and being reminded, gently, of ways to strengthen my Sage response to them, situations that used to be so challenging have almost miraculously become much easier to deal with. What a gift to have Kym as my guide!”
~ Jill Henry-Tabbott