Sten Vesterli's Blog

Making IT Live up to its Promise

Tag: Productivity

Save Energy Using Boxes

Spiritual Programmer,

Every item in your field of vision costs you energy. Brain scans show that the automatic effort of filtering out irrelevant objects takes power, and the more items you look at, the worse your focus becomes.

You need to see fewer objects. You don’t have to throw anything out (though that is probably good, too). Simply take a number of items that have some relation to each other and put them in a box. 12 USB cables and 7 memory sticks become one object when they go into a box.

Throwing random objects into a box doesn’t trick your brain, however. Looking at a box you know contains random junk actually costs more energy, because now your brain is also thinking about the task of getting the stuff out of the box and sorting it.

Get out a box and remove some clutter from your field of vision. You’ll find that your energy increases. You just might even get around to that task you have been putting off for weeks.

Stop Your Tech from Distracting You

Spiritual Programmer,

To create something, you need focus. I take meeting notes on paper because a sheet of paper won’t suddenly interrupt me with an unimportant message. When I am in focus mode, I have notification off on my phone and my computer. When writing on the computer, I use the “focus” mode in Word that removes all the menus and covers everything on my screen but the document.

You need to bend your technology to your will. Spend a moment investigating the “focus” features on your laptop and various devices and activate the ones that make sense for you.

People and Material

IT Leadership, Technology That Fits, ,

“In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.” Napoleon said that in 1808, and it applies equally in Ukraine today.

It also applies in other human endeavors. You can see organizations performing well with antiquated IT systems, and organizations making a mess of their customer service even though they have the latest and greatest cloud services. Simply rolling out new technology without considering people, organization, and processes will not improve your organization.

Single Tasking Day

Spiritual Programmer, ,

Today 2/22 is “Single Tasking Day.” You might think you are able to multi-task, but that is an illusion. You are simply emulating multitasking with your single-processor brain by task switching. And just like a computer, you lose a little (or a lot) of time before you are productive on the new task.

Celebrate Single Tasking Day by selecting one task from your long list of half-finished tasks, and work on that one until it is complete. Every incomplete task takes up valuable RAM in your mind. Notice how you feel more in control of your life once you can cross that task completely off your list. #SingleTaskingDay

Create Your Sound

Spiritual Programmer,

When you work from home, you can create your own sound. You are free from the hellish soundscape of the open-plan office, so you don’t have to wear your noise-cancelling headphones. Since you probably don’t live in the countryside where you only heard birdsong and the buzzing of bees, you will have to create your own sound landscape.

You might have traffic noise, neighbors, barking dogs, and maybe even our partner speaking too loudly on a Zoom call. The antidote to this is to actively add sounds that mask out the annoying sounds. Consider a small indoor fountain to create the soothing sound of running water. You can get a white noise machine to create a neutral background that masks other noises. Or you can play instrumental music at low volume through your computer speakers or a separate speaker connected to your phone.

Sound affects your mood and your productivity. When working from home, you gain the ability to create your own sound.