One Thing at a Time

What is the fastest, most efficient way you can handle all the things competing for your attention? Prioritize them, and then handle them one at a time. It sounds simple enough, but this goes against the grain of society, which "says" do many things at once to be more efficient.

You see this every day: someone jogging down the road listening to an Ipod or somebody doing work or reading while eating lunch. People double up activities, as if somehow that is going to make things easier, better, more rewarding, or longer lasting.

Consider some of the greatest people in history: George Washington, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Were they in a hurry? Sure, they acted urgently because the things they did were important, but did they walk faster, talk faster, try to do any of the things we do today to be
"efficient?" No -- they had mastered the art of doing one thing at a time.

The daily information and media shower leaves each of us incapable of ingesting, synthesizing, or applying the data before tomorrow's shower. You've got to break out of the mindset that society has imposed upon you. Sometimes the best way to be productive is to sit at your desk doing
nothing; at least nothing that looks like anything to people walking by.

Homogenizing Our Holidays

Memorial Day is a day for remembering and honoring military personnel who died in the service of their country, particularly those who died in battle or as a result of wounds sustained in battle. We've homogenized our holidays, however, of this I am certain.

Instead of letting many of the holidays fall as they would, scattered throughout the days of the week, we now force fit them into Mondays or Fridays so that we can enjoy long weekends. No more Lincoln's Birthday, no more Washington's birthday, we now have President's Day, and too many citizens have no idea which presidents we're even honoring.

Labor day has become a shopping day. For many, Memorial Day has no meaning other than that which TV viewers may happen to view on the 6 o'clock news, when they see veterans marching in formation or loved ones visiting a cemetery. There is no national unity through the celebration of common national holidays. Indeed, if anything there is splintering. The quest for efficiency or uniformity has morphed into a social blandness in which no days stand out. No celebrations are worth getting worked up about, little or no true reflection occurs, and the only pauses anyone take is when they're forced to, i.e. the car stalls, the computer crashes, or blackout squelches electricity for a night.

"In with the New" Ad Nauseum

* The Smithsonian Museum adds more than 1,000,000 items to its collection each year, most of which are not seen by the public.

* The fully printed documentation for every feature and system on a Boeing 757 outweighs the plane.

* The typical U.S. executive annually receives more than 54,000 e-mails, most of them spam.

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