The cost of interruptions

When I'm trying to write, I really get frustrated with interruptions. That's why I try to write at times when interruptions will be limited, and I turn off my phone and close my email while I write. Today I discovered that the effects of interruptions have been measured. This stunning conclusion is complements of Gloria Mark, Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine:

How long does it take people to get back on task? We found about 82 percent of all interrupted work is resumed on the same day. But here’s the bad news — it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task.
The article offers that not all interruptions are the same, and in fact, some interruptions are beneficial. However, the author of this article echoes my own general frustration:
Are we becoming more superficial thinkers? I argue that when people are switching contexts every 10 and half minutes they can’t possibly be thinking deeply. There’s no way people can achieve flow. When I write a research article, it takes me a couple of hours before I can even begin to think creatively. If I was switching every 10 and half minutes, there’s just no way I’d be able to think deeply about what I’m doing. This is really bad for innovation. When you’re on the treadmill like this, it’s just not possible to achieve flow.

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Americans Need Less Self-Esteem

From Eric Barker's blog: "Research shows self-esteem doesn’t cause all those good things. It’s just a side effect of healthy behavior. So artificially boosting it doesn’t work." From Kristin Neff's Book Self-Compassion:

In one influential review of the self-esteem literature, it was concluded that high self-esteem actually did not improve academic achievement or job performance or leadership skills or prevent children from smoking, drinking, or taking drugs. If anything, high self-esteem appears to be the consequence rather than the cause of healthy behaviors.

What does raising self-esteem do? It probably increases narcissism. So what do we need instead of self-esteem? Self-compassion. Stop lying to yourself that you’re so awesome. Instead, focus on forgiving yourself when you’re not. In my upcoming book I talk about why self-compassion beats self-esteem.

So why does compassion succeed where self-esteem fails? Because self-esteem is always either delusional or contingent, neither of which lead to good things. To always feel like you’re awesome you need to either divorce yourself from reality or be on a treadmill of constantly proving your value. At some point you won’t measure up, which then craters your self-esteem. Not to mention relentlessly proving yourself is exhausting and unsettling. Self-compassion lets you see the facts and accept that you’re not perfect. As famed psychologist Albert Ellis once said, “Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it’s conditional.” People with self-compassion don’t feel the need to constantly prove themselves, and research shows they are less likely to feel like a “loser.”

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More about Narcissists in the Age of Trump

I stumbled across this detailed article on twenty techniques used by Narcissists (and other malfunctioning types of people) in personal relationships -- or is it an article about Donald Trump? The full title: "20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You." The bottom line caveat: "If you think you’re going to have a thoughtful discussion with someone who is toxic, be prepared for epic mindfuckery rather than conversational mindfulness." In short, conversations are often attacks that only look like conversations.

In the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath, your differing opinions, legitimate emotions and lived experiences get translated into character flaws and evidence of your irrationality.
Narcissism is the main focus of the article, however, and Narcissists tend to be . . . well ... narcissistic:
Narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and otherwise toxic people do this because they wish to divert attention back to themselves and how you’re going to please them. If there is anything outside of them that may threaten their control over your life, they seek to destroy it. They need to be the center of attention at all times. In the idealization phase, you were once the center of a narcissist’s world – now the narcissist becomes the center of yours. Narcissists are also naturally pathologically envious and don’t want anything to come in between them and their influence over you. Your happiness represents everything they feel they cannot have in their emotionally shallow lives. After all, if you learn that you can get validation, respect and love from other sources besides the toxic person, what’s to keep you from leaving them?
Chapters include Gaslighting, Projection, "Moving the goalposts," "Changing the Subject," Threats (including covert threats), Aggressive Jabs Disguised as Jokes and Shaming.

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Wabi-Sabi and many other emotions not well known by name

Are there emotions other than the commonly discussed ones? This article by BBC presents many others. Most of them have names in other languages, and I did not recognize any of these names. I did, however, recognize many of the feelings described in the article. Hence, the title of the article, "The Untranslatable Emotions," doesn't quite work for me, because I do recognize many of these emotions. Here are a few examples presented, and there are many others I enjoyed reading about in the article:

Natsukashii (Japanese) – a nostalgic longing for the past, with happiness for the fond memory, yet sadness that it is no longer Wabi-sabi (Japanese) – a “dark, desolate sublimity” centred on transience and imperfection in beauty Saudade (Portuguese) – a melancholic longing or nostalgia for a person, place or thing that is far away either spatially or in time – a vague, dreaming wistfulness for phenomena that may not even exist Sehnsucht (German) – “life-longings”, an intense desire for alternative states and realisations of life, even if they are unattainable

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Who are you? Strangers can get a good idea based on a few dozen of your Facebook “likes.”

Psychologist Michal Kosinski developed a method to size up who a person based on their FB activity. If you would like to get a small taste for what companies can do with Big Data, follow this link to Kosinski's own website (found in the above article). I did this, and I was impressed. Based on 60 of your FB "likes," a company can get a impressive read on who you are. This is not just a parlor trick. This type of analytics can swing a tight presidential election.

Continue ReadingWho are you? Strangers can get a good idea based on a few dozen of your Facebook “likes.”