As I type this, I am multi-tasking. I have six different tabs open on my browser, a Word document and a spreadsheet. I also have a list of 16 phone calls I need to make, and 47 email messages I need to respond to, as well as 34 that I am awaiting a response on - responses that are holding up other decisions. As I type, I am mentally attempting to prioritize the multitude of tasks I need to get done; each new one I think of takes on a new level of importance, yet at the moment each fall behind the task of posting to a blog that everyone or perhaps nobody is reading. Consequently, I am here doing this, but I really feel like I should be doing something else.
I noticed recently that I live in a perpetual state of motion from the time I awake somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 am until I go to bed and sometimes while I sleep as Abby or Grace may wake up and need to be comforted, or I've worked myself into such a frenzy about something, that its easier to just get up and turn on my laptop and begin working. Emails from me at 2 am are almost as common as those that arrive at 2 pm. Even a Sunday, which is no longer a day dedicated to work is constant motion. Its time reading to Abby, feeding Grace or doing household chores. Life in constant motion is essentially living life at varying levels of anxiety; those moments when I am not in motion are strangely unsettling, as if the time/space continuum has been slightly altered.
For quite some time, I thought I was the only one living like this, but it appears that there is an entire generation of us who seem to be elsewhere and anywhere but where we are at the moment. That all changed the other day while I was stranded on a plane attempting to get home. Then, I read not one, but two articles on a new book - Elsewhere USA: How we got from the Company Man, Family Dinners and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, Blackberry Moms and Economic Anxiety. Here is the book description from Amazon:
Over the past three decades, our daily lives have changed slowly but dramatically. Boundaries between leisure and work, public space and private space, and home and office have blurred and become permeable. How many of us now work from home, our wireless economy allowing and encouraging us to work 24/7? How many of us talk to our children while scrolling through e-mails on our BlackBerrys? How many of us feel overextended, as we are challenged to play multiple roles–worker, boss, parent, spouse, friend, and client–all in the same instant?
I haven't read the book so I can't comment on it, but I did answer "yes" to all the questions just posed. So, I have ordered it and put it on my priority list; I will hopefully begin it this week while I'm on the plane this coming week. I'l post further thoughts on this after I read it, but in the meantime, here is the article in BusinessWeek and Newsweek. After you've read the articles or the book, let me know your thoughts and how your dealing with life in constant motion.
I noticed recently that I live in a perpetual state of motion from the time I awake somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 am until I go to bed and sometimes while I sleep as Abby or Grace may wake up and need to be comforted, or I've worked myself into such a frenzy about something, that its easier to just get up and turn on my laptop and begin working. Emails from me at 2 am are almost as common as those that arrive at 2 pm. Even a Sunday, which is no longer a day dedicated to work is constant motion. Its time reading to Abby, feeding Grace or doing household chores. Life in constant motion is essentially living life at varying levels of anxiety; those moments when I am not in motion are strangely unsettling, as if the time/space continuum has been slightly altered.
For quite some time, I thought I was the only one living like this, but it appears that there is an entire generation of us who seem to be elsewhere and anywhere but where we are at the moment. That all changed the other day while I was stranded on a plane attempting to get home. Then, I read not one, but two articles on a new book - Elsewhere USA: How we got from the Company Man, Family Dinners and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, Blackberry Moms and Economic Anxiety. Here is the book description from Amazon:
Over the past three decades, our daily lives have changed slowly but dramatically. Boundaries between leisure and work, public space and private space, and home and office have blurred and become permeable. How many of us now work from home, our wireless economy allowing and encouraging us to work 24/7? How many of us talk to our children while scrolling through e-mails on our BlackBerrys? How many of us feel overextended, as we are challenged to play multiple roles–worker, boss, parent, spouse, friend, and client–all in the same instant?
I haven't read the book so I can't comment on it, but I did answer "yes" to all the questions just posed. So, I have ordered it and put it on my priority list; I will hopefully begin it this week while I'm on the plane this coming week. I'l post further thoughts on this after I read it, but in the meantime, here is the article in BusinessWeek and Newsweek. After you've read the articles or the book, let me know your thoughts and how your dealing with life in constant motion.
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