I am yours for 2 coppers

I’ve just found a wonderful 1973 study on the psychoanalysis of graffiti that discusses how unconscious desires might be expressed through public scrawlings.

It has a completely charming table that compares graffiti from A.D. 79 Pompeii with 1960's Los Angeles to demonstrate the similarity of themes across the centuries.

The author concludes that “aggressive-destructive and incorporative wishes are similarly satisfied by the wall writer at the expense of the wall owner” although overtly sexual images should be considered as definitely expressing sexual themes.

Link to locked 1973 study the psychoanalysis of graffiti.

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The Best Productivity Podcasts of 2011

Photo credit: cybass (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Remember self-help tapes? You used to throw them into your car or Walkman when you were going on a lengthy trip so that you could “grow on the go” and hope to return home all the better for it. Or you’d put them on rather than read at night so you could improve various aspects of your life.

Well, podcasts that discuss various aspects of productivity very well could be the evolution of those self-help tapes. To a point.

To be more accurate, they can also serve as a successor to radio programs that discussed these topics. They can also be a source of news in the world of productivity and work philosophy. Actually, podcasts have a wide variety of applications for today’s audience.

So with this year soon coming to a close, I thought I’d be a little proactive and get you listening to the best productivity podcasts of 2011 — before you really have to start thinking about how you’re going to make next year even better than this one.

Hosted by Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin on the 5by5 network, Back to Work brought Mann back into the podcasting spotlight. At its core, it focuses on Mann’s new message of doing work (as opposed to just looking at ways to do the work) and it is both informative and entertaining. I’d expect nothing less from these two gentlemen, and they deliver wekk in and week out.

While this 70Decibels program (featuring Patrick Rhone and Myke Hurley) may look on the surface that it is all about the Mac, that isn’t always the case. Yes, Rhone and Hurley do love their Apple gear (as do I), but episodes of Enough have often gone beyond that scope. Occasionally they welcome guests on the show, with trusted Internet folk like Brett Kelly, Shawn Blanc and Dave Caolo stepping into the mix. All of this adds up to a fresh and inviting look at productivity, minimalism and organization on a regular basis. And they’re shorter than most podcasts, too. A bonus for those who want to get their podcast fix in and go.

Another short weekly podcast, Stever Robbins offers short tidbits of valuable info that you can easily apply to your everyday lives. This podcast makes what is often a dry topic more lively and accessible than most websites or podcasts do. If you want to start your day with a great tip to get you moving forward, this one is certainly worth subscribing to.

The official GTD podcast. This regularly updated podcast features David Allen speaking on topics of interest to those following the world of productivity – or for those who just want to get better at getting things done. The David Allen Company Podcast offers a varied approach to the podcasting realm, delivering interviews and seminar-styled presentations as part of the menu. Worth checking out – especially if you need to brush up on your GTD best practices.

One of the newest entries in the podcasting landscape, ZENandTECH is a real treat to listen to. Again, episodes aren’t terribly long, and the two hosts (Georgia and Rene Ritchie) have a great chemistry. This isn’t a traditional productivity-type podcast; it falls more in line with what Enough is doing, but with a balanced approach to technology and mindfulness.

There are many other productivity-style podcasts out there on the web to listen to, but the aforementioned ones offer the most informing, educating and entertaining programming that I’ve heard on a consistent basis.

Do you have a podcast that you listen to that helps you be more productive? Let us know about it in the comments.

Mike Vardy is an independent writer, speaker, podcaster and "productivity pundit" who also dishes the goods at Vardy.me. You can follow him daily on Twitter, listen to him weekly on ProductiVardy, and read more from him eventually at Eventualism.

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So You Think You Can Multitask? Think Again.

Photo credit: Pedro Moura Pinheiro (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

According to Nick Bilton, lead technology reporter of the New York Times, the common held belief that multitasking is impossible is “media hype”, noting that the ability to multitask “depends on what the tasks are”. All experienced drivers are able to drive and talk at the same time. Most mothers are able to talk, cook and clean at the same time, but the question remains: Are they actually multitasking?

Many people believe that multitasking is the only way they cope in our world of task and information overload but the reality is that the brain is incapable of actually focusing on two things at the same time. A frontal part of the brain called Broadman’s Area 10 is supposedly responsible for the brain switching from task to task, and whereas we may think we are multitasking we are actually getting good at switching from task to task more seamlessly.

The current generation have seemingly started to use this part of the brain better than the previous generation, as switching from homework to Facebook, to using Skype on their phone are normal daily activities. Bilton says that our brains are adapting, not evolving but adapting to the increased stimulation that modern life brings. Video games may also be responsible for the development of multitasking capability in terms of attention, hand eye coordination and visual and spatial problem solving.

So what about the people who say it is possible to watch television, send emails, tweet and have a conversation with their partner all at the same time? Well, these people are simply task-switching.

And what about those who can drive and talk on the phone, or dance and sing or rub their bellies and pat their heads? In these examples one of the two tasks has become somewhat automated. Driving or riding a bicycle are perfect examples of how the brain works in the background. We no longer have to focus on what we are doing to arrive home safely. Although if something out of the ordinary happens, our brain must focus back on the driving to ensure all is well.

I recently saw Bilton speak at the Dublin Web Summit and at least 70% of the audience tapped away at their laptops, iPads or smartphones while he spoke. Some were note-taking, some were checking out his book or his website, and others were busy tweeting, blogging or communicating online in some form or another. I’m sure most attendees thought they were listening to the talk, but I believe that their attention was split and not all would remember what was said. They inevitably had to experience the “zone in” and “zone out” of task-switching to some degree.

The term “multitasking” originated in the computer engineering industry. It was used to explain how a microprocessor can seem to process several tasks simultaneously. But in order for a single core processor to process tasks it actually has to “time share” the processor. Only one task can be processed at a time, but these tasks are rotated many times a second. With a multi-core processor, each core can perform a separate task simultaneously.

So the idea that we can work on more than one thing at once is actually a fallacy. In keeping with the original meaning of multitasking, we now know that the multiple tasks that we are attending to are actually sharing brain time. And there is always a price to be paid when switching tasks.

Some research has shown multitasking to reduce productivity by 40%, but like everything in life it depends on what tasks — and the importance of full focus while doing it.

“To be everywhere is to be nowhere” –  Seneca, Spanish-born Roman Statesman and philosopher

If the tasks you are doing are relatively unimportant or mundane and don’t require undivided attention to complete, multitasking can help to get more done. But if you have an important job or one that requires particular attention or care, the best solution is to stay focused on it (and, at the very least, turn off your phone).

After all, it is necessary to be actually where you are in order to achieve the best results.

Ciara Conlon is a Personal Productivity Coach and author. Her mission is to help people achieve their best through working efficiently and being positive and present. “Through Productivity and Positivity I believe there is little we can’t achieve” go to Productivity & Positivity and get Free eBook called Clear the Clutter; Find Your Life

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Why Temporary Defeat Is Not Permanent Failure

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TEDxWomen: The conversation continues … and you can join

Cross-posted from the TEDx Tumblr: Last year’s TEDWomen conference has inspired an ambitious TEDx event: TEDxWomen, a one-day bi-coastal event held in NY and LA on December 1, independently organized and hosted by Pat Mitchell and The Paley Center for Media.

Speakers including Barbara Walters, singer-songwriter Morley, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem and documentarion Jennifer Siebel Newsom will convene under the theme “The Conversation Continues.”

You can bring this global conversation local by hosting a TEDx viewing event around TEDxWomen in your own community.

Last year, 117 TEDx events in 46 countries — including the United States, Colombia, Singapore, South Africa and Brazil — were planned around the TEDWomen webcast. Speakers at these local events included a pair of Dutch opera singers, an Olympic silver medalist and a Disney-trained animator from the UAE.

This year, be a part of this ongoing conversation around the future of women and girls — host a TEDx event around TEDxWomen. Learn more >>

Keep up with the latest TEDxWomen news on the TEDxWomen website, Facebook page and Twitter.

Photo from TEDxOttawa, Ottawa, Canada

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The free will rebellion

A popular mantra of modern neuroscience tells us that free will is an illusion. An article in the New York Times makes a lucid challenge to the ‘death of free will’ idea and a prominent neuroscientist has come out to fight the same corner.

Neuroscientists began making preparations for the funeral of free will shortly after Benjamin Libet began publishing his experiments in the 1980s showing a consistent build-up of electrical activity from the brain’s motor cortex before participants were consciously aware of their desire to move.

Since then, many more neuroscience studies have shown that brain activity can precede conscious awareness of specific choices or actions – with the implication that our conscious experience of decision-making is nothing but a secondary effect that plays little role in our actions and reactions.

The idea that ‘free will is an illusion’ is now consistently touted by neuroscientists as an example of how brain science is revealing ‘what really drives us’ and how it explains ‘how we really work’. But philosophers, the conceptual engineers of new ideas, have started to find holes in this popular meme.

Probably the most lucid mainstream analysis of why neuroscience isn’t killing free will has just been published at The New York Times where philosopher of mind Eddy Nahmias takes the mourners to task using a narrow and largely irrelevant definition of free will.

So, does neuroscience mean the death of free will? Well, it could if it somehow demonstrated that conscious deliberation and rational self-control did not really exist or that they worked in a sheltered corner of the brain that has no influence on our actions. But neither of these possibilities is likely. True, the mind sciences will continue to show that consciousness does not work in just the ways we thought, and they already suggest significant limitations on the extent of our rationality, self-knowledge, and self-control. Such discoveries suggest that most of us possess less free will than we tend to think, and they may inform debates about our degrees of responsibility. But they do not show that free will is an illusion.

Nahmais makes the point that the ‘death of free will’ idea makes a fallacy he calls ‘bypassing’ that reduces our decisions to chemical reactions, implying that our conscious thinking is bypassed, and so we must lack free will.

He notes that this is like saying life doesn’t exist because every living thing is made up of non-living molecules, when, in reality, its impossible to understand life or free will without considering the system at the macro level – that is, the actions and interactions of the whole organism.

Interestingly, a similar point is made by legendary neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga in an interview for Salon where he discusses his new book on free will. He also suggests it’s not possible to understand free will at the level of neurons without making the concept nonsensical.

These contrasting concepts about free will may yet be solved, however, as Nature recently reported on a new $4 million ‘Big Questions in Free Will’ project which brings together philosophers and cognitive scientists to work together to understand how we act in the world.

Link to NYT piece ‘Is Neuroscience the Death of Free Will?’
Link to Salon interview with Michael Gazzaniga.
Link to Nature piece ‘Taking Aim at Free Will’.

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Bloom: A Different Kind of Productivity App for the iPhone

Photo courtesy of Mindbloom

Seattle-based Mindbloom has made waves with its digital inspiration and productivity web app, adding a gamification element to the niche that was both unique in approach and in accessibility. Now they’ve added a standalone app to its arsenal with Bloom, a free app that gives users a real kickstart in doing what really matters in everyday life. It offers a fun and simple way to transform photos and music into a private or shared digital inspiration. Bloom brings what’s really important in life to the forefront, enabling users to connect better with their lives as a whole as opposed to just their to-do lists. I’ve had a chance to play with the app while it was in testing, and the Mindbloom team definitely are onto something with Bloom.

The digital inspirations that are the foundation of the app are called (fittingly) Blooms, and the app comes pre-loaded with several of them. You can set reminders that will notify you when it’s time to “Bloom” them – and those reminders can be randomized or set for particular dates and times. You can associate different images from your iPhone with each Bloom, and do the same with music from your iTunes library. Each Bloom comes with imagery attached already, so you can choose to go with those defaults or pick photos from your own library that fit the Bloom best. As for musical selections for Blooms, each one comes with a preview of a suggested iTunes song (and offers a download link so you can grab it straight away), or you can go with your own song if you want.

The "Edit Bloom" Screen

Blooms can also be shared socially via your Facebook and Twitter accounts, or can be sent to friends and family via email. Once shared, Blooms can be saved in the Bloom app, played, or be used as the starting point for a new, personalized Bloom. Here’s an example of how I’ve used varying privacy settings with Blooms:

I sent a private Bloom to my wife to be sure that we share a hug every day.I have prepared a share group-only Bloom with fellow NaNoWriMo writers on “staying the course”.I’ve got a public Bloom that ready to be “socially shared” (Facebook and Twitter followers) that suggest they give Bloom a look as soon as they can download it.

Bloom notifications are one of the things I really took advantage of during my testing of the app. It reminded me to reflect, take a break, or trigger an action that kept me focused on what mattered to me most. I’ve never been really good at keeping up with water intake, but Bloom has allowed me to do this.

I’d never enter something like “Drink water” into my task management app of choice, but since I don’t look at Bloom in that manner, I’m able to do it here. What I consider Bloom to be is a life enhancement app, a companion piece that I can use (along with Mindbloom) to keep augment mindfulness while I let my task manager handle all of the other stuff. It’s part of my combined system, and it works well for me because each component does what it does better than the others.

But why should you grab Bloom? And more importantly, why should you use it – or Mindbloom, for that matter?

Unlike any productivity-type application I’ve seen, Mindbloom basically makes achieving what might be usually considered an ordinary thing quite an extraordinary digital experience.

Parks Associates, an industry research firm, is studying a growing demand for health entertainment and lead analyst, Harry Wang believes Mindbloom can be just as entertaining as it is beneficial.

“Many health and wellness applications often take a prescriptive approach when designing the user experience. But we’ve seen that people tend to become less engaged with these types of applications over time,” said Mr. Wang.  “Mindbloom takes a more personal approach, entertaining even, which makes the overall experience more inviting, relevant and rewarding.”

I had the opportunity to speak with Mindbloom founder Chris Hewett when Mindbloom first launched and just days before Bloom was scheduled to go public. What I discovered is that he is among those who are developing a new generation of productivity/task management apps that “gets it”.

It brings to mind this quote, which, much like Steve Jobs, I’ve been a fan of:

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” – Wayne Gretzky

Hewett and his team are doing just that with the Mindbloom web app – and now, with Bloom on the iPhone.

The "Reminder Prompt" Screen

“Everyday, more than 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook, Instagram recently celebrated 150 million photos being shared and iTunes recently surpassed 16 billion song downloads,” said Hewett, a former executive producer for Monolith Productions who developed blockbuster hits such as No One Lives Forever, Tron 2.0, and F.E.A.R. ”Photos and music are a powerful way to express ourselves and to share experiences, but we believe there’s an untapped opportunity to use photos, music and inspiring words to remind ourselves and express to others what matters most to us and what we’re doing about it.”

As mentioned, Bloom can act as a standalone app, or can work in conjunction with the Mindbloom web app through the recently launched free-to-play “life game”, which serves to inspire people to define what’s important, discover what motivates them, and take meaningful daily actions in all areas of their life. Users can connect Bloom with their Mindbloom life game, where it builds on these goals by focusing on the science behind behavioral change – integrating technology, art, and human psychology to make personal growth more effective on-the-go.

Bloom is now available as a free download in the iTunes App Store .  I recommend you give it a look – it’s not your ordinary productivity and lifestyle app.

In fact, it’s quite extraordinary.

Mike Vardy is an independent writer, speaker, podcaster and "productivity pundit" who also dishes the goods at Vardy.me. You can follow him daily on Twitter, listen to him weekly on ProductiVardy, and read more from him eventually at Eventualism.

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