Tim's back from his "mini retirement" through London, Scotland, Sardinia, Slovak Republic, Austria, Amsterdam, and Japan.
Some unpleasant surprises awaited him when he checked in on the evil e-mail inbox.~~ Why?~~~ He let them happen.
He always does.(and so do I)
He met with his Japanese publisher, Seishisha (Tel: 03-5574-8511) and had media interviews in Tokyo, where the 4HWW is now #1 in several of the largest chains.
He took a complete 10-day media fast and felt like he’d had a two-year vacation from computers.
-He attended the Tokyo International Film Festival and hung out with one of his heroes, the producer of the Planet Earth television series.
Tim says;
"Once you realize that you can turn off the noise without the world ending, you’re liberated in a way that few people ever know."
"Just remember: if you don’t have attention, you don’t have time. Did I have time to check e-mail and voicemail? Sure. It might take 10 minutes. Did I have the attention to risk fishing for crises in those 10 minutes? Not at all."
"As tempting as it is to “just check e-mail for one minute,” I didn’t do it. I know from experience that any problem found in the inbox will linger on the brain for hours or days after you shut-down the computer, rendering “free time” useless with preoccupation. It’s the worst of states, where you experience neither relaxation nor productivity. Be focused on work or focused on something else, never in-between."
"Time without attention is worthless, so value attention over time."
Timothy Ferris is a genius and the inspiration for this blog.
You must read the rest of this article here!
...The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen
2 comments:
Bonjour Gord!
Working from home, I need to let people know this doesn’t mean I’m available every single minute of every single day. For one thing, I never answer the door if I’m not expecting someone. People have been advised—-and this includes family and friends—-to call or e-mail me in order to plan a day and time for their visit.
I never answer the phone. The machine takes the calls, and I return them when I’m ready and able to. I’m a writer. Just because I don’t go to a cabin in the woods or a grass hut on the beach to do what I love to do doesn’t mean I’m not writing in my home office or kitchen or bathtub. The guy downstairs knows that even if he hears me walking through the house, I won’t answer the phone unless he’s calling to say the building’s on fire. He’ll have to wait till I’m “out of my creative bubble.”
As for e-mails, I’m still working on them. Since I’m at the computer most of the time, I’m often tempted to check the ol’ inbox. Bad habit! So I’m down to four visits a day now: morning, lunch, late afternoon and late evening. I definitely plan to eliminate the morning check-in as it breaks my stream of consciousness after waking up. Not a good idea.
Finally, Tim’s media fast reminds me of an exercise Julia Cameron has us do in Week 4 of “The Artist’s Way”: Reading Deprivation. We must go for a whole week without ANY reading. No magazines, no newspapers, no books whatsoever. As she so eloquently puts it, “For most artists, words are like tiny tranquilizers. We have a daily quota of media chat that we swallow up. Like greasy food, it clogs our system. Too much of it and we feel, yes, fried.”
Big hugs always,
Mudd a.k.a. Oza
xoxo
Gord - thanks for this awesome post.
I'm grappling with the whole play during playtime and work during worktime concept myself. As a fulltime RVer, my hubby and I just worked out a plan to incorporate two business days in our mobile lifestyle. Otherwise, I kept freaking out every time we were doing the touristy thang and I felt guilty and pulled towards my computer!! LOL
I recently blogged about our two-day workweek at http://tyandmari.com
Cheers,
Mari - your new Facebook buddy and fellow 4HWW evangelist! :)
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