Esther and i were driving tonight and a good number of the cars we were around had the bright screens of DVD players showing out their windows. One of the vehicles turned to go to the same store as we were, which clued us into the fact that the vehicle and it’s occupants were not on a road trip of any kind. Probably just a run to the store, like us.

What was most disturbing was that the children in the back seat had the DVD players on for a trip to store.

Can a child not make the five, maybe ten, minute ride to the store without having to have five, or ten, more minutes of “fill in the blank” DVD?

This has been theme today. Not only the kin in the car, but during training today, two of the three other people in the training were pulled away by phone calls or email. This normally would not phase me, the two people are normally every hard to pin down due to the high visibility of their jobs. They are constantly putting out fires.

The issue will be more concerning when I have to spend a good amount of time getting them back up to speed or re-teaching them parts of the software package they missed out on. Cellphones are designed with an off button for a reason. So that should you need to focus or not be disturbed, you cannot be reached.

The same can be said for email but during evenings and on the weekends. If you are never offline, how does one know when work ends and the “rest of life” begins. (As a side note, it is sad that I feel the need to refer to the living as the “rest of life”, but it is appropriate when referring to a particular co worker.)

I think this trend started with cell phones and has gotten progressively worse as cell phones have grown “smart”, incorporating email, IM, text messaging.

To stop myself from falling into these traps, I have set both my mail client and the mail program on my iPhone to only check for mail manually. I have a “no work email” policy for both evenings and during the weekend. Turning off can be some of the best therapy for a stressed out worker, I know that I now have time to focus on “worK” as opposed to managing my email, etc. It also provides time to focus on activities outside of work, in my case, running and artistic endeavors, which are important in continuing to develop as a “whole” person.

Take this weekend and turn some inputs off.

I have really started using del.icio.us to keep track of my links. Instead of keeping the automated del.icio.us link posts, which updates once a day when ever I save something to del.icio.us, I am now going to start hand picking the best links that I find. The number of “link” posts I have been having, replacing “real” content has been a little much recently, thus the hand-picked links.

• A Simple Way to Improve Your Life Everyday | Life Optimizer
  This post has been the single most influential on my week. (I also did a write up on the concept on The Simplicity Habit)
• In Secret Hideaway, Bill Gates Ponders Microsoft’s Future - WSJ.com
  I think it is interesting that a major CEO hides away for a week to just think. Probably something I should try.
• Op-Chart: Making Money Hand Over Fist - The New York Times
  A fascinating info-graphic that answers a long held question of mine.
• Modern Feed serves up the ultimate Web TV surfing tool | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone
  I have ben seriously considering getting rid of cable, this service may make it possible.

• blog.pmarca.com: The New York Times covers blogging
  Please let the beating of the NYT keep coming
  (tags: blogging blog nyt)
• YouTube - Merlin Mann on Time and Attention (Getting Things Done)
  (tags: merlinmann merlin 43folders google techtalk)
• Getting things done (simply) in Leopard | Dennis Best
  (tags: leopard OSX GTD simple)
• Featured Mac Download: Spark Creates Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
  (tags: osx keyboard shortcut)
• Unclutterer » Archive » An argument against multi-tasking
  (tags: multitasking monotasking unclutterer)

• Enterprise wikis reviewed at Tom Raftery’s Social Media
  (tags: enterprise wiki comparison)
• TweetStats :: Graphin’ Your Stats
  (tags: stats analytics twitter)

The New York Times ran an article today about bloggers who were working themselves to death and how this becoming part of a rising trend. While I do agree that the always-on, instant news source culture that has been created by the new blog community has created some problems, specifically the accuracy of the “reporting.” It think Matt Richtel gets it wrong.

The article paints the picture of an epidemic, bloggers keeling over left-and-right, but this is no different than professional journalists. As Matt writes, all of these limit-pushing activities are self imposed.

The New York Times wrote an article on November 11, 2007, interviewing and discussing the luminaries of the tech world including, Marc Andreessen, Jason Hoffman, and Jason DeFillippo, founder of Metroblogging Global Blog Network, a blogging network just like Gawker or Weblogs, Inc. The topic of the article was the low information diet as prescribed by Tim Ferriss in the 4 Hour Work Week. This is another self imposed lifestyle, one that all of the interviewees say has been a positive one.

This is the problem with the article. It makes it sound like blogging will kill you, but the sad truth is that these people would have worked themselves into an early grave regardless of their profession.

A work/life balance is important, more than ever. Just because the culture and technology is forcing us to be always on and always connected, doesn’t mean we have to buy into that. This is the goal of lifehacking, the goal of GTD, the goal of decluttering: Exerting control over life versus life controlling you.