Some sage advice for dealing with technological overwhelm.

Distractions | Tricycle Magazine:

In the age of cell phones and the Internet, many of us have become smitten with the distractions of choice—texting, instant messaging, twittering, listening to iPods, checking email, reading the news online. These distractions can be fun, and, when seen as multitasking, even necessary. The problem is that some distractions are more detrimental to our focus and happiness than others. Most distractions fall into one of two categories: those that draw us in multiple directions at once, resulting in confusion and an inability to complete a thought or action, and those that provide mental relaxation, offering small “breaks” that support intense focus and effort. Clearly, we want less of the former and more of the latter.

Try this:

Clarify the next steps?Write down the items on your mental to-do list—projects, aspirations, or even the groceries. Next to each item, list the next step that is needed to complete it. Often we get distracted by our overwhelming lists of priorities, when what we need is to break them down into doable actions.

Appreciate impermanence?I saw a cartoon a couple years ago in The New Yorker in which two people were finishing their dinners at a Chinese restaurant and had just opened their fortune cookies. One fortune read, “Someday you will die.” If you let this fact sink in—that life is short and we all die—it can act as a powerful motivating force to help maintain focus and priorities.??Savor borrowed time?Imagine, for a moment, that you have died and now have a chance to return to this life. Now what? What would you do differently? This is a way of acknowledging how short and how precious our lives are.