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Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
In the early days of my obsession from Ebay, a strange aggressive message for describing the items offered for sale was often added: Please no weeks of time.
What is it about? I said to myself. Sounds a bit excited. At that time I was less cramped and overloaded. “Chillax buddy!” Murmured the old ego, amazed over the defensive, Irasklulus sound of these harassed sellers.
Around the same time, during a busy afternoon in the FT messages, I was surprised by a colleague equally, which did something similar personally. In view of the conversation advances of another hack, which told him about problems, he simply rejected the approach.
“I just don’t have the bandwidth,” he said. He actually held up a hand to ward off it and continued with his own work. Wow, I thought. Ruthless, but effective – and probably also quite male.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how yesterday’s Miranda reacted. I noticed how other limits determine. I noticed it rude. But I haven’t seen that it appealed to a phenomenon that it is advisable to protect yourself: things that take the time if you don’t have enough of it.
Now it’s different. E -mails and SMS messages have been accompanied by WhatsApp groups since these innocent times and Social media Notifications that stop work News a marathon around the clock. The care of older parents has created a tsunami of the administrator to which my children’s school stacks in a strong portion of MAD apps to communicate them separately, from homework to vaccinations and absences.
It’s all a colossal faff. And I’m not alone. A recently carried out survey showed that British issue 1.52 billion hours as a nation Every year on admin and in our productive time a big ole hole – not to mention us to digital burnout.
The worst affected are women in middle age – probably because we take care of administrator on behalf of the boys and the old. Do I feel better to know that my overwhelming is typical? Possibly not – I am not sure whether there are security in numbers if you describe the hours of time for this nonsense. Peter Finch in citation network: I am damn crazy and won’t take it anymore.
What is the solution? Accordingly Cal Newport And other prophets to regain their resources for what is important. It is best to switch off everything. Simply take off from e -mails, social media and the entire digital enchilada. Perhaps a bouncback message determines, but do not promise to read anything. Life is out there that you live it, and the work also needs to keep you right without distractions.
However, most of us do not have the luxury of disappearing for a day. The impossibility of really rejecting yourself makes drolling proposals on social media for the management of a plump -filled E -Mail -Post input. How about one Weekly choice To select one that receives an answer, will the rest be deleted? If only!
But there is a better approach. It even worked for me for a few years until digital attack collected violence. Just do what is urgent. Find out how you recognize the things that actually need your attention and to deal with you immediately. I would recommend this through the tyranny of task lists, in which medium -term tasks become terrible psychological stress.
This is the norm in the news industry. Follow -up now, make this call, write down the damn thing, find the information and pass it on. Then go to the next task. When people enter into a news room, it is unusually irritating. In addition, it seems a bit like an affront – hence my colleague’s refusal to get involved in the years ago.
And who really had worse manners in this exchange? This is something I have returned to. Now I think that the determination of limits is completely necessary. This does not mean that I would dare to tell a colleague that I don’t have the bandwidth, not least because women are expected to be more beautiful.
But I will certainly be less thoughtless about the time of other people. No more answer to senseless news, such as those that I sent to the publisher of this column with the silly joke via e -mail. There is nothing wrong with sharing a little ease on the working day. But it is also not wrong to ignore it. As she did with careful. “Please don’t work time!”
