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No sooner has the tsunami-size wave of new tech communications devices become de rigor for every business person than the next newest thing is to unplug ourselves and overcome our raging addiction to constant communication with, well, everything and everyone.
If you read Alex Williams’ “Too Much Information? Ignore
It,” the lead story in the Sunday Styles section of The New York Times,
you already may be panting your way through “The 4-Hour Workweek,” motivational
guru Timothy Ferriss’ best-selling book.
It’s reported that even as Silicon Valley’s work-enslaved entrepreneurs
yearn for less work and just a little play, Mr. Ferriss is globe-trotting
through weeks of exotic travel and adventure, having outsourced his own business
tasks (presumably except for 4 hours a week) to others.
Well who wouldn’t want to read about that? Me for one.
Not because it’s not appealing, but because it has to be impossible. How
would it be to have other people, often in other countries, responsible for the
remaining 36 (or 46, or 56) hours the workweek, and still call it “my”
business? Precarious, to say the least. Mr. Ferriss is said to have “even hired
low-paid, high-skilled workers abroad to find him dates on line. (And it
worked.)” Now there’s a real risk-taker
at heart.
Don’t mistake me—and don’t mistake the clever “4-Hour”
title, which is seductive in itself.
There’s a lot to be said for trimming back the constant flow of
information, so much of which is irrelevant and innocuous. If we’re going crazy with it (I am SOOO
busy!), look to ourselves for the cause.
We can, with a bit of self discipline, edit our intake and save a lot of
precious time. (Which, when you think about it, is the only thing any of us
really owns.)
So Mr. Ferriss is on to something. Still, he worries me. Williams says that Ferriss’
methods “include practicing ‘selective ignorance’—tuning out pointless
communiqués, random Twitters, and even world affairs (Mr. Ferriss says he gets
most of his news by asking waiters).”
Help! That kind of extreme tune-out makes for
ill-informed citizens, which leads to lousy government. So please, do tune out the extraneous, but
turn on the essentials. Waiters can be
interesting resources for food news, but for world affairs, please go to NPR,
or at least CNN.
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While we know "spam" well, and rejoice in using those filters (however imperfect they are), we do seem to need a new word for all that other information that seems to be making us so anxious--and there's got to be a better way than outsourcing and selective ignorance to manage it.
But you've got to admit that Ferriss is doing a spectacular job of marketing his product using the very channels he purports to ignore.