If you also have a blog with WordPress, you might have heard of their daily prompts: one-word tidbits of inspiration to help you fight writer’s block (blogger’s block?). Today’s prompt is waiting (click to see what others are writing on the topic!).
Waiting… It’s just something we aren’t very good at anymore. As a child of the nineties, I can remember being bored in doctors’ waiting rooms, during the summer, waiting to be picked up from school… Does anyone with a smartphone still experience that?
We try to keep up with our emails, our task-lists, with everyone-but-me’s Instagrams of Santorini (seriously someone buy me a ticket!)… Yet despite jumping around like an aroused mosquito we can’t really seem to keep on top of it all.
The solution? Grab a cup of your hot beverage of choice (apparently holding a warm beverage increases empathy and altruism: random fact of the day) and dip into one or both of the following resources with your undivided attention:
- A New York Times article called Read This Story Without Distraction (Can You?)
- This great BBC Radio 4 series on busyness, recommended by an anonymous colleague on our department’s whiteboard
That’s all for today! Go and enjoy the power of focus and rediscover the joys of idleness!
Here’s a little music for the road:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-C-IbkuNWs]
I liked the New York Times article. It highlighted just how conditioned I am to expect multiple things to go onat the same time. I could not turn off my music whilst reading it. I was on holiday last week to a secluded place with no wifi or network. First time in years I didn’t have that extra distraction. It was strange. There were huge benefits but I like wifi!
Thank you for your comment (the very first one on this blog!). I think many of us are guilty of this and could do with disconnecting to reconnect a bit sometimes!