on why there is more to doing, than time management

http://qz.com/447193/time-management-is-only-making-our-busy-lives-worse/

'TICK. TOCK.

Time management is only making our busy lives worse

“Tess…started her way up the dark and crooked lane not made for hasty progress; a street laid out before inches of land had value, and when one-handed clocks sufficiently sub-divided the day.” —Thomas Hardy

Imagine your life without time, without a constant sense that you’re running behind, frustrated that yet again you are losing the battle against the irresistible force of the ticking clock. Imagine not wishing there were more hours in the day.

We haven’t always been obsessed with time. In fact, as the historian E.P. Thompson highlighted half a century ago, before the Industrial Revolution clocks were largely irrelevant. Instead of a time orientation, people had a task orientation. They had jobs to do, and so they did them in the natural order, at the natural time. This worked for a largely agricultural society. However, the factories of the Industrial Revolution needed to coordinate hundreds of people to get them working at the same time, in synchronicity—and that required clocks. So business leaders imposed clock time on their workforce (not without resistance), and eminent leaders, such as Benjamin Franklin, reinforced the value of this with statements like “time is money.”

Cast the clock forward 250 years, and we’re all obsessed with time. We don’t need managers to impose time discipline upon us—we do it ourselves because we’re so busy. It seems the only option in the face of the demand-and-expectation tsunami hitting us each day. So we schedule and cram our time, squeezing all the efficiency we can out of each day. Time management, we believe, is the solution to our busyness: if we could organize our time better, we’d be less overwhelmed, happier, and more effective. We are completely wrong on all three counts, and it’s damaging our lives and our careers.

Time management only makes you busier

Research does show that if you increase people’s time awareness—by placing a big clock in front of them, for example—they do more stuff(think about how much work you get done on the last day before your holiday). It makes logical sense that, by getting more done, we’d be likely to feel more in control. More than that, it is one of the great fantasies of time management: if you get more organized, you will get on top. However, that only works in a finite world. We haven’t lived in that world for quite a while. In our infinite world, we will never be able to get on top of everything, ever again; there is just too much to do. In Greek mythology, when you cut off one of Hydra’s heads, two would grow back. Like with the Hydra, when we complete more tasks, all that happens is more appear to take their place—send more emails, get more replies. In essence, if we do more as a result of better managing our time, we don’t get it all done—we just become busier.

Maximizing your time means fracturing your attention

Armed with gadgets, we have never been better equipped to “maximize our time.” Our ever-present phones allow us to fill all our time productively, to communicate in real-time, and to juggle multiple tasks, swatting away incoming demands like some super-charged task-ninja, potent and efficient. As we seek to maximize our time, we slice and dice it into ever-smaller increments. This leads to what Brigid Schulte calls time-confetti; however, the real impact isn’t on our time, but on our attention. When we scatter our attention across a thousand micro-activities, we prevent ourselves from engaging deeply or thinking properly.

Life-enhancing conversations with loved ones are disemboweled with frequent “productive” glances at the inbox; our ability to think is decimated by the distraction of the ping and the ring. We maintain a state of chaotic mental activity that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi callspsychic entropy. This is the opposite of the optimal psychological state of flow, where attention is allowed to linger, to sink into an activity without distraction, where we bring our thoughts, actions, and goals into perfect synchronicity for extended periods. Flow doesn’t happen in splinters of time, but in great big lumps of attention. Think about your last few weeks. All the moments you had of real insight or happiness came from times when you sank your attention, with reckless abandon, into the moment and the activity. In fact, one of the very features of flow is a loss of the sense of time. In maximizing our time, we rob our moments of their color.

Time awareness makes us less effective

Having heard all this you may still be thinking that you’d be willing to feel busier and less happy as long as you could be effective. Unfortunately, time management hinders our performance in this area too. Effectiveness comes from two core abilities: prioritization and achievement. When we prioritize well, we choose to do the right things, not just the obvious things. Yet when we have a strong time awareness, our attention narrows and our ability to make good choices declines. We make decisions based on the immediate demand, rather than zooming out to look at the bigger picture. We prioritize the urgent and immediate, rather than the important and strategic. In our time-driven frenzy, our gaze seldom lifts from things like the inbox and task list. Research by Microsoft, for example, suggests that 77% of UK workersfeel they have had a productive day if they have emptied their inbox. It constantly horrifies me to see the number of blogs and books which focus on the goal of getting to an empty inbox or zero tasks, as if either achievement was worthwhile. No business or life was changed by an empty inbox and anyone who gets to zero tasks simply lacks imagination!

In addition to making bad choices, research by Michael DeDonno and Heath Demaree shows that perceived time pressure lowers our ability to achieve as well. They found that the very sense of a lack of time—rather than an actual lack of time—reduces our performance. Teresa Amabile of Harvard has also shown that increased time-focus reduces our problem solving ability, and our capacity to generate imaginative solutions. We think less well when we work under the shadow of the clock.

The end of the time management era

It is true: we will be able to do more stuff if we focus on managing our time, but in today’s business environment, we don’t need more repetitive, synchronized activity like we did in the Industrial Revolution. We need more thinking, more creativity, and more problem solving. A focus on time will undermine all of these. It will make you feel more overwhelmed and miserable too! Time management was a brilliant invention, and helped to transform society 250 years ago. It is just not helpful anymore; in fact it’s harmful in a world of too much. It’s time to develop a different strategy—one that starts from the recognition that, in our overloaded world, the greatest shortage is nottime, but attention. Put another way; time is no longer money.

Follow Tony on Twitter @tonycrabbe. We welcome your comments atideas@qz.com.'

'Medicating Women’s Feelings'

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/opinion/sunday/medicating-womens-feelings.html?referrer=&_r=2

By JULIE HOLLAND

FEBRUARY 28, 2015

'WOMEN are moody. By evolutionary design, we are hard-wired to be sensitive to our environments, empathic to our children’s needs and intuitive of our partners’ intentions. This is basic to our survival and that of our offspring. Some research suggests that women are often better at articulating their feelings than men because as the female brain develops, more capacity is reserved for language, memory, hearing and observing emotions in others.

These are observations rooted in biology, not intended to mesh with any kind of pro- or anti-feminist ideology. But they do have social implications. Women’s emotionality is a sign of health, not disease; it is a source of power. But we are under constant pressure to restrain our emotional lives. We have been taught to apologize for our tears, to suppress our anger and to fear being called hysterical.

The pharmaceutical industry plays on that fear, targeting women in a barrage of advertising on daytime talk shows and in magazines. More Americans are on psychiatric medications than ever before, and in my experience they are staying on them far longer than was ever intended. Sales of antidepressants and antianxiety meds have been booming in the past two decades, and they’ve recently been outpaced by an antipsychotic, Abilify, that is the No. 1 seller among all drugs in the United States, not just psychiatric ones.

As a psychiatrist practicing for 20 years, I must tell you, this is insane.

At least one in four women in America now takes a psychiatric medication, compared with one in seven men. Women are nearly twice as likely to receive a diagnosis of depression or anxiety disorder than men are. For many women, these drugs greatly improve their lives. But for others they aren’t necessary. The increase in prescriptions for psychiatric medications, often by doctors in other specialties, is creating a new normal, encouraging more women to seek chemical assistance. Whether a woman needs these drugs should be a medical decision, not a response to peer pressure and consumerism.

The new, medicated normal is at odds with women’s dynamic biology; brain and body chemicals are meant to be in flux. To simplify things, think of serotonin as the “it’s all good” brain chemical. Too high and you don’t care much about anything; too low and everything seems like a problem to be fixed.

In the days leading up to menstruation, when emotional sensitivity is heightened, women may feel less insulated, more irritable or dissatisfied. I tell my patients that the thoughts and feelings that come up during this phase are genuine, and perhaps it’s best to re-evaluate what they put up with the rest of the month, when their hormone and neurotransmitter levels are more likely programmed to prompt them to be accommodating to others’ demands and needs.

The most common antidepressants, which are also used to treat anxiety, are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (S.S.R.I.s) that enhance serotonin transmission. S.S.R.I.s keep things “all good.” But too good is no good. More serotonin might lengthen your short fuse and quell your fears, but it also helps to numb you, physically and emotionally. These medicines frequently leave women less interested in sex. S.S.R.I.s tend to blunt negative feelings more than they boost positive ones. On S.S.R.I.s, you probably won’t be skipping around with a grin; it’s just that you stay more rational and less emotional. Some people on S.S.R.I.s have also reported less of many other human traits: empathy, irritation, sadness, erotic dreaming, creativity, anger, expression of their feelings, mourning and worry.

Obviously, there are situations where psychiatric medications are called for. The problem is too many genuinely ill people remain untreated, mostly because of socioeconomic factors. People who don’t really need these drugs are trying to medicate a normal reaction to an unnatural set of stressors: lives without nearly enough sleep, sunshine, nutrients, movement and eye contact, which is crucial to us as social primates.

If the serotonin levels of women are constantly, artificially high, they are at risk of losing their emotional sensitivity with its natural fluctuations, and modeling a more masculine, static hormonal balance. This emotional blunting encourages women to take on behaviors that are typically approved by men: appearing to be invulnerable, for instance, a stance that might help women move up in male-dominated businesses. Primate studies show that giving an S.S.R.I. can augment social dominance behaviors, elevating an animal’s status in the hierarchy.

But at what cost? I had a patient who called me from her office in tears, saying she needed to increase her antidepressant dosage because she couldn’t be seen crying at work. After dissecting why she was upset — her boss had betrayed and humiliated her in front of her staff — we decided that what was needed was calm confrontation, not more medication.

Medical chart reviews consistently show that doctors are more likely to give women psychiatric medications than men, especially women between the ages of 35 and 64. For some women in that age group the symptoms of perimenopause can sound a lot like depression, and tears are common. Crying isn’t just about sadness. When we are scared, or frustrated, when we see injustice, when we are deeply touched by the poignancy of humanity, we cry. And some women cry more easily than others. It doesn’t mean we’re weak or out of control. At higher doses, S.S.R.I.s make it difficult to cry. They can also promote apathy and indifference. Change comes from the discomfort and awareness that something is wrong; we know what’s right only when we feel it. If medicated means complacent, it helps no one.

When we are overmedicated, our emotions become synthetic. For personal growth, for a satisfying marriage and for a more peaceful world, what we need is more empathy, compassion, receptivity, emotionality and vulnerability, not less.

We need to stop labeling our sadness and anxiety as uncomfortable symptoms, and to appreciate them as a healthy, adaptive part of our biology.'

Julie Holland is a psychiatrist in New York and the author of “Moody Bitches: The Truth About the Drugs You’re Taking, the Sleep You’re Missing, the Sex You’re Not Having, and What’s Really Making You Crazy.”

professional attire

http://www.umsl.edu/depts/career/files/pdfs/Professional%20Dress%20Handout.pdf

http://www.career.vt.edu/interviewing/interviewappearance.html

https://www.ndsu.edu/career/dress_to_impress/

http://www.sbu.edu/docs/default-source/life-at-sbu-documents/professional-wardrobe-nbsp-.pdf?sfvrsn=0

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2009_06_19/caredit.a0900077

https://www.hartford.edu/career_services/files/pdf/dress_women.pdf

https://www.careereducation.columbia.edu/resources/tipsheets/skills-professional-image

http://as.cornell.edu/academics/careers/networking/upload/DressforSuccess-1.pdf

http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-to-dress-for-work-business-attire-2014-8

http://www.business.umt.edu/Portals/0/docs/Career%20Development/WomensBusinessProfessionalInterviewAttire.pdf

https://www.creighton.edu/careercenter/students/interviewtips/professionaletiquettetips/professionaldressforwomen/

http://www.engr.psu.edu/career/Students/interviewing/attire.aspx

http://www.moi-meme.com/guide-to-professional-attire-for-women/

http://www.usfsp.edu/career/files/2015/01/dress-code-career-fair-New-Dec-14.pdf


https://www.ndsu.edu/career/dress_for_success/

http://cse.ksu.edu/files/cse/img-150112090957.pdf

http://career.opcd.wfu.edu/practice-for-an-interview/interview-attire/

http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/~/media/Files/MSB/Student-Orgs/Diversity%20Council/F12_-_Instructional_Guide_-_Business_Attire.pdf

http://jezebel.com/5512638/dress-code-how-to-dress-for-work

https://career.berkeley.edu/Callisto/RecrAttire

http://happygolegal.com/2012/05/put-your-best-foot-forward-professional-attire-simplified-for-summer-associates/#.VaEUJ_lViko

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/perspectives_magazine/2010_fall_order_in_closet.authcheckdam.pdf

http://womanofscience.com/tag/professional-attire/

http://www.southwestern.edu/live/files/1472-business-attire-resource-guide

http://mmlafleur.com/mdash

http://www.bluesuitsonline.com/interview_suit-guide.html



General career advice
http://www.umsl.edu/depts/career/Career%20Tools/index.html

http://career.opcd.wfu.edu/practice-for-an-interview/interview-attire/

Saudi Satire Show

https://uk.tv.yahoo.com/saudi-tv-show-becomes-hit-mocking-islamic-state-154548208.html

Saudi TV show becomes a hit by mocking Islamic State group

By AYA BATRAWY | Associated Press – Wed, Jul 8, 2015 16:45 BST

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A new TV satire program has become a hit in the Arab world by mocking some of the region's most serious issues, from the intractable Sunni-Shiite divide and religious extremism to the brutality of militants like the Islamic State group.

The show, "Selfie," has also brought a backlash. Islamic State group sympathizers have made death threats against its Saudi star and top writer on social media. One mainstream Saudi cleric denounced the show of heresy for mocking the country's ultraconservative religious establishment. That has made it the buzz of the current Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is the peak television viewing season in the Middle East.

Naser al-Qasabi, the series' star, and its writer Khalaf al-Harbi told The Associated Press in their first interview with foreign media that they expected the backlash, but weren't prepared for the popularity. It's one of the top shows on MBC, the privately owned Saudi network that airs it, and has been the talk of the Gulf press.

Al-Qasabi says the series' dark humor reveals just how tragic the situation across the Middle East has become.

"What's coming is darker," he said. "Maybe I am a bit pessimistic, and I hope that I am wrong, but I don't think I am."

In one of the show's episodes, al-Qasabi plays a would-be "caliph" starting his own Islamic State group-style militia, but he's surrounded by buffoons and hypocrites. His "mufti," or top cleric, never finished school. He struggles to find ways to differentiate his group — his group's flag is the same as IS's notorious banner but with the black and white colors flipped. When one of his cronies boasts of plans for a mass beheading, the "caliph" complains that he wants a new form of execution.

"Behead, behead, behead. That's all you got?" he groans, before suggesting the captives be put in a freezer. It's particularly bitter humor, given the increasingly grisly ways IS has used to kill its captives.

In the show's most popular skit, al-Qasabi plays a Saudi father whose son has run off to join IS. He smuggles himself into Syria, pretends to be a jihadi joining IS and tries to convince his son to return home. It's a more serious episode, showing his horror at IS "perversions" of Islam and at the group's atrocities — and his torment as he tries to avoid committing atrocities himself in his disguise. But it has comic moments as well, as he fumbles his way through militant training and is chased around the bed by a militant bride who is forced on him by the group and who has dedicated her life to pleasing jihadis as a means of going to heaven.

Other, lower-budget Iraqi and Syrian TV shows have mocked IS and other militants. But "Selfie" stands out with its high production values — and the fact that it's a show with Saudi actors on a Saudi network at times mocking attitudes on religion in the kingdom, where there is little tolerance for discussing the many taboos.

In one episode, two Saudi men meet at an airport in Europe and bond over their love of women, alcohol and hard partying. But, though neither is religious, their budding friendship takes a nosedive when they discover that one is Sunni and the other Shiite. They argue until airport security detains them. When police discover they are fighting over a split that happened 1,400 years ago, they send the two a mental hospital.

Another skit lampooned Saudi Arabia's powerful ultraconservative religious establishment and its stance against music. That was the show that prompted cleric Saeed bin Mohammed bin Farwa to accuse al-Qasabi and MBC of heresy.

Columnist Hamad al-Majed also criticized the show in the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, saying that in its attempt to ridicule extremism the series also disrespected Islamic traditions and made generalizations, especially about Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qasabi told the AP he views his acting career as his own form of "jihad" — which in Islam literally means any struggle in the path to God.

"Offering something positive that raises awareness of issues, I see this as jihad," he said. "Jihad is that you raise your children well. Jihad is that you work and are on a path to doing things well. Jihad is that you are good at your work ... Life is one great jihad."

Al-Qasabi and al-Harbi are no strangers to controversy. They both worked on "Tash ma Tash", a long-running comedy that ruffled feathers for its handling of sensitive issues in Saudi society.

Al-Harbi says he wanted to kick it up a notch with "Selfie." He explained the title, saying the show is trying to give a snapshot of Arab society today.

"Selfie's" biggest success, said al-Harbi, is in exposing how extremist groups manipulate religion. He said the show delivered that message to the Arab public more effectively than lectures or government-controlled newspapers.

"I felt this is a weapon that will reach the audience," he said. "If it was just something comical, we would have focused on easy societal issues that aren't dangerous and are guaranteed safe."

7/7 - 10 years on

Public service workers. Highly trained. Selfless. Living legends.
The immensity of my respect has no words.

Worryingly, 10 years on, the mayor and government have seen it appropriate to close down police stations and fire stations, increasing pressures on public transport staff, and slowly, but progressively having their way with the NHS.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/lightbox/the-heroes-of-7-7-slideshow/heroes-of-7-7-photo-1436178345571.html

Metropolitan Police Constable Elizabeth Kenworthy was an off-duty PC travelling in the fourth carriage of the train that was blown up at Aldgate in the 7/7 bombings and is credited with saving two peoples lives. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Her abiding memory of the day was of people coming out of surrounding buildings with cups of tea and offers of help.




Police Sergeant Shane Joshua is pictured outside New Scotland Yard on June 24, 2015 in London, England. As a Police Constable he was sent to Kings Cross to deal with the 7/7 bombings. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)



Sergeant Joshua's abiding memory of the day was the strength of human spirit shown by the people affected.





Craig Cassidy was the first paramedic to arrive at the scene at Aldgate Station as he was driving past at the time on on his way to another job. He believed at first that their had been a train crash. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)



He remembers: "How well everyone came together. Not just the emergency services but the public as well: really showing the true spirit of the UK and London. They showed that we won't be cowed by murderers. The underlining thing is that you knock us down, we will always get back up."



Stephen Hockin, a firefighter, poses for a portrait at Chelsea Fire Station on July 3, 2015 in London, England. Stephen was Crew Manager and was sent to Edgware Road Underground Station. (Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images)


His abiding memory of the day is "feeling a sense of pride in witnessing people's unselfish behaviour and risking their own lives to help strangers."


Gary Stevens, Access Manager for London Underground, poses for a portrait at Russell Square Underground Station on July 1, 2015 in London, England. Gary was station manager at Russell Square Underground Station on the day. (Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images)



He remembers: "the badness and the goodness that humanity brought to London on 7/7. The badness being the bombs that went off and the goodness being the Russell Square Station staff who far exceeded what was expected of them on the day."


PC Ashley Walker poses for a protrait at the site of the 7/7 bus bomb in Tavistock Square on June 19, 2015 in London, England. PC Walker was first on the scene at Tavistock. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)



"The first thing I remember about the explosion was the sound, like a large thud, the popping of 1,000 balloons" he says.



Eoin Stuart-Walker, a paramedic, poses for a portrait at Aldgate Underground Station on July 3, 2015 in London, England. Eoin was a paramedic sent to Aldgate Underground Station. (Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images)


He remembers, "the smell of burning flesh and the heat whilst dealing with the large number of patients in one of the most difficult clinical situations of my life."



Firefighter Cem Cam is pictured outside Dowgate Fire Station on June 25, 2015 in London, England. The temporary watch manager was sent to Edgware Road underground station. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)



Cam's abiding memory of the day was realising that the attacks would change London into a more security conscious city.




Detective Sergeant Louise Rochester, a PC at the time of the attack, poses for a portrait at Holborn Police Station on June 19, 2015 in London, England. DS Rochester was first on the scene at Russell Square. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images



"One of my abiding memories is being driven back from the scene and seeing masses of people walking home because there was no transport" she says.