PSYCHOLOGY
Live More and Simpler
Does going further, climbing higher, or being faster really add to our lives?
by Sulynn Choong

JAN 2012 | It’s a new year. Almost automatically we wish each other a happy one – some wishes more earnestly than others. A new beginning, a fresh start. Like an eraser wiping a whiteboard clean so that we can write anew on it. What will you do differently this year? Do you plan to go further, higher or faster? Would you consider a plan to live more and simpler? Did you read that last question again? Yes, live more and simpler.

How is that possible? Living more seems to mean doing more. How can that be simpler?

Life has become quite complex with the proliferation of time-saving gadgets and equipment around us. My pet rant is about computer and technology which has dominated my life the last 30 years. The computer was aggressively marketed then as a machine to save time and paper. Nonsense, it is doing neither. These days, computers have invaded our workplace, our home, and every other place in between. They have become indispensable to most of us.

Over the last two decades, computers have become increasingly multi-functionally versatile and powerful while shrinking in size and becoming highly portable. In the last decade, smartphones have provided instant communications through voice, text and video plus spoilt us with entertainment options – without any need for us to do more than press some buttons.

We are on call 24/7. People have the audacity to ask ‘why was your phone not on?’ I am sure I am not the only one to be so afflicted. Documents are sent to me for perusal/ consideration/ review in the middle of nowhere any time of day. Meetings are fixed over calendars in my phone simply by clicking Accept/Maybe/Decline. WhatsApp, Viber, Line, Skype, Facetime, Microsoft exchange, and the prevalence of social networking media from Twitter to New York Times to Harpers magazines all make volumes of information instantly available and literally at our fingertips. Yes even HR Matters went ‘e-‘.

So cool! Herein lies the fallacy. Technology has saved us time looking for information but put so much information in our hands that takes us so much time to read.

Yes we have a choice. Barry Schwartz in his book, The Paradox of Choice, separated the world into satisficers and maximisers. Satisficers have an idea of what they want, get something that matches what they wanted and it is done. Maximisers take their time in looking for and reviewing what’s available, alternatives and perhaps even enhancements (y’know just in case) and then quite reluctantly have to make a choice due to financial, time or other constraints. Technology saves time for the satisficer and creates a nightmarish info overload and choice conundrum for the maximisers.

So let’s put these random thoughts into context. For the maximisers among us, what if we considered doing the following in the next 12months:
• Step 1. Switch your gadgets off save but one at a time.
• Step 2. Turn all Apps and programmes off save but one at a time.
• Step 3. Finish what you are doing or plan to do with or without technology aid.
• Step 4. When done with Step 3, select what to do next and repeat Steps 1 to 3.

The benefits of doing so include:

• We will have better focus and the quality of whatever we are doing improves – a conversation, an action, a thought, the product of any other mental activity. Our brains are not working at their optimal when we are multitasking. The brain can only focus on one thing at a time. When we multitask, it does rapid switching back and forth between or among the various things we are doing at the same time. Hence we are short-changing each transaction, ourselves and others. We make fewer mistakes and actually do things faster if we multitask less.

• We will be healthier. When we multitask, we require heightened alertness. This causes stress in our bodies. Brief biology lesson: Under stress, the brain signals release of adrenalin and cortisol which boost blood sugar and oxygen levels (enough to keep you running for a mile), push more blood to the brain hence increasing alertness.

In the short term, stress suppresses our immune system, slows down the body’s rate of repair, slows down metabolism, and robs the body of vital nutrients. In the medium term, we start experiencing mood swings, bouts of chronic fatigue and anxiety. Prolonged high stress levels are known to lead to rapid ageing, weight gain, risk of osteoporosis, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and digestive problems. Surely this is reason enough to work at a different pace.

• We learn to live as human beings and not as ‘human doings’. No more juggling. We engage in human face time and look at the people we are talking to. We will walk to the next cubicle to talk to our colleague instead of sending an e-message or using the Chatbox.

As HR folks, picking up the good old telephone to talk to our employees or meeting them face to face beats email – puts ‘human’ back into HR.

We can live more and simpler by learning to master technology and determining how to leverage on technology to release more time for being human. Bless those who have chosen to be blissfully technology-intolerant for they know there is life beyond information and technology. The advancement of IT has transformed us into gadget-like people – ever available and accessible.

We have accepted that being absent present is good enough. Let us pledge to be fully present to what matters most – our people! Live more ... and simpler.

Visit Sulynn's homepage at HR Matters for full access to her other column pieces.

Read Humanising Organisational Change, Sulynn's previous article, in the October 2011 issue.