On Sunday, my husband and I went to his uncle’s 95th birthday party. It was amazing how young and healthy Uncle Bill looked, and how totally with-it he was. I found out that he keeps himself very busy: With the help of an 87-year-old buddy, he designs, plants, and cares for the flower gardens at…
In his recent Writer’s Almanac, Garrison Keillor talks about the poet Li-Young Lee‘s contention that his brain hunts up ideas while he sleeps:
“Lee says his writing process isn’t very disciplined, even though he feels he’s on duty 24 hours a day: ‘When I wake up, there’s something in me even beyond my wakeful mind that’s been…
On a recent airing of “The Writer’s Almanac,” Garrison Keillor quoted an interview with J.K. Rowling on how she got the idea of writing a novel about Harry Potter:
She was on a train coming home to London from a weekend looking at flats in Manchester in 1990, when she suddenly got the idea for a…
A new book “Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little” (reviewed in today’s New York Times) says the “elevator speech” may be too long. We now have such a short time to catch our target’s attention that we should think about an escalator pitch, “short enough to make when you’re on the up escalator…
I was in the Verizon store picking up an iPhone for my son, when I saw that one of its touted features was improved multitasking. Knowing what research says about how multitasking slows you down and interferes with the quality and accuracy of what you’re doing, I was intrigued. But thinking more about this, I…
In light of the recent Supreme Court decision overturning the California law that would have made it harder for minors to buy extremely violent video games, people have been asking me about the author of the New York Times op-ed piece that appeared on Monday. Ms. Olson and her husband Lawrence Kutner have been pooh-poohing…
There’s an interesting AP article today about the problem of people texting during movies and distracting other viewers. What does this say about our ability to focus on one thing at a time, even when we’ve paid to sit in a dark room and be entertained? For some people, making comments seems to be part…
“To have a major breakthrough in policy, you have to be able to stop and think.” In today’s The New York Times, Newt Gingrich was quoted as saying this to justify taking a two-week cruise to Greece with his wife shortly after announcing his run for the presidency.
He’s correct about the necessity to stop and think…
The author of a new book “The Digital Diet,” agrees with many of the things I said in my 2009 book “Conquer CyberOverload.” Former science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg agrees that many people find it hard to break free from the digital distractions that hinder their lives. However, I disagree with the Quiz he…
I was giving a presentation to a group of students a few weeks ago about Thriving on Campus AND in Cyberspace, with the message that you can get more done in less time if you quit multitasking and take well-timed, brain-enhancing breaks. The students were fascinated by the brain exercises I gave them to prove…