March 20th, 2006
Approved Slacking

First of all, a quote that I just love:

I am a woman at the seashore, trying to scoop out an ocean of experience, beauty, life, truth, and understanding and fit it in the tiny pool in the rocks that is the limits of my capacity.

Secondly, because I am posting at midnight, I can’t yet point to the post(s) announcing the faboo new sale I mentioned on Friday. Neither can I yet name names. But MAJOR CONGRATULATIONS to . . . . you know who you are! (I’ll come back later and add links!) Update: Go add your congrats to Stephanie Tyler and Larissa Ione.

Oh, and a nice post on promo from another angle. Deceit, exploitation? Or…furthering our collective cause?

Now, from CNN.Money.com: Be smarter at work, slack off In a world of too much work and too much multitasking, the best way to beat the competition may be to do less.

I realize this article is geared toward the corporate world, but there were quite a few pithy snippets that authors – especially those under intense and back-to-back deadlines – might want to pay attention to. I know they grabbed me by the very tired shoulders, shook me hard, and forced me to say, “A-ha!”

  • But it’s really, really hard, if not impossible, for the human brain to come up with fresh new ideas when its owner is overworked, overtired, and stressed out.

    • Uh, yeah. I don’t think I can offer anything more to that one.

  • “The physiological effects of tiredness are well-known. You can turn a smart person into an idiot just by overworking him,” notes Peter Capelli, a professor of management at Wharton.

    • Equally obvious, blubber, blubber.

  • The late Peter Drucker (…) wrote in The Effective Executive (…), “All one can think and do in a short time is to think what one already knows and to do as one has always done.”

    • Is this possibly one reason an author’s books can begin to sound the same? No downtime between deadlines? Nothing fresh happening upstairs due to exhaustion?

  • One detailed study five years ago by psychologists at the University of Michigan demonstrated that, because the human brain needs time to shift gears between tasks, the more switching back and forth you have to do — between, say, talking on the phone, reading e-mail, and thinking about your next meeting, all while scarfing down a sandwich at your desk — the less proficiently you will tackle any of it (…).

    • Change “meeting” to your next book, your next loop digest, your next round of blog hopping, your next deadline, etc. . . . you get the idea.

  • What scientists have only recently begun to realize is that people may do their best thinking when they are not concentrating on work at all. If you’ve ever had a great idea pop into your head while you were washing your car, walking your dog, or even napping, you already know what a team of Dutch psychologists revealed last month in the journal Science: The unconscious mind is a terrific solver of complex problems when the conscious mind is busy elsewhere or, perhaps better yet, not overtaxed at all.

    • Just don’t ram your pinky up your nose.

    This entry was posted on Monday, March 20th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Writing. You can feed this entry. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

    4 comments to “Approved Slacking”

    1. kim h
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      · March 20th, 2006 at 10:15 am · Link

      congrats ladies!



    2. Jaye Patrick
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      · March 21st, 2006 at 2:18 am · Link

      I remember reading an article about Windows 98/2000, whatever; the one where Bill Gates presents it publically and it didn’t work. It was shown that the programmers were told either finish it on time or be fired. Sleep depravation of the programmers lead to mistakes and they had to go back and re-write a lot of it.

      So, lesson learned. Don’t write when your exhausted just to make the deadline, it will lead to some strange stuff, total rewrites (blah) and embarrassment. If you are tired and that deadline is approaching, two tricks: leave it mid-sentence and sleep, or make notes on where you’re up to and what you want to happen next, and sleep.

      Oh, and congratulations to Stephanie and Larrisa! WOOT!



    3. Steph T.
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      · March 21st, 2006 at 7:00 am · Link

      Thanks for the congrats, Alison!!

      And thanks too, Jaye!! We’re so excited:):)



    4. Larissa
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      · March 21st, 2006 at 8:48 am · Link

      Thanks for the congrats!!!! Like Steph said, we’re SO excited.

      And only a little terrified! :)