I used to be one of those people that took pride in designing and employing personal systems to deal with email, magazine subscriptions, paying bills, my Netflix queue, etc. I still do. But now I have a second sort of personal satisfaction for some of these obligations: fuck off.
That might seem harsh, but really, we take this position way more than we might realize. Get a phone call from an "unknown" number? Oversized coupon from Bed, Bath and Beyond in the mail? How about those people on the street that ask you if you have "a few minutes to spare for the environment." Yeah, you've reached down deep and pulled up a "fuck off" or two in your time. It's how we deal with the constant onslaught of advertising, unsolicited communications, and empty media that we unwittingly consume every day.
So my new personal system now has a whole 'nother category. Those obligations that are just as happily ignored as they are attended. This means that while I might still do my dishes when I can't find a glass, I no longer cringe whenever I get a new email, or that email goes unread for a couple days, or that unread email becomes part of an inbox that tops 100 messages. Not my problem. Just a number.
Does this seem irresponsible? Sloppy? Antagonistic? I think it's a new form of zen in the digital age. Those little alert badges on my iPhone, the unread count in my Google Reader, achieving "inbox zero" can all bite me. The universe awaits.
Letting go wasn't easy. It took days, weeks, of trying to keep up. One system on top of another, reading blogs for tips on how to expertly "manage" (read, become enslaved to) these various tools — eventually I decided, after some trepidation, that if the "system" didn't actually provide a sincere benefit, and really just gave me that feeling of "completeness," then I would try to let it go. Turns out, letting go feels pretty good.
Just like advertisements, telemarketing, and leaflets stuck under your car's windshield wiper, it can, and will eventually become, invisible to you. Just give it some time. You might find, as I have, that it's easier to pay attention to meaningful things, like content you actually have time to look at, when you stop caring about all the obligations that come with an oversubscribed lifestyle.
In the end, this approach has extended farther than I ever could have predicted. Not everything deserves a reaction, just because it's colored red, or because it raised its voice, or because it said my name. I pause, consider, and maybe ignore the disruption. If it really wants my attention, it'll call me again, and if it's an unknown number, well, I guess it's my loss.
I'm an Interaction Design Lead at a renowned innovation firm in Chicago. I've worked as a writer, strategist and general disseminator of anticipatory design science for a wide variety of industries and clients.
Comments 2 Comments
Not tech-zen yet myself, but in other news...are you using Internet Explorer?