What Captures Your Attention Controls Your Life – HBR

A few years ago, DisneyWorld executives were wondering what most captured the attention of toddlers and infants at their theme park and hotels in Orlando, Florida. So they hired me and a cultural anthropologist to observe them as they passed by all the costumed cast members, animated creatures, twirling rides, sweet-smelling snacks, and colorful toys. But after a couple of hours of close observation, we realized that what most captured the young children’s attention wasn’t Disney-conjured magic. Instead it was their parents’ cell phones, especially when the parents were using them.

via What Captures Your Attention Controls Your Life – Kare Anderson – Harvard Business Review.

How many people are not really where they are but someplace else?

How to Be Happier at Work – Start Something!

Start something. More specifically, start something outside of work.

via How to Be Happier at Work – Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer, and Paul B. Brown – Harvard Business Review.

Before you get mad at me take note of where this article comes from.  Harvard Business Review Blog Network is the source of this article.  This article reminds me of what I did several years ago.  I started something.

When I started something I had no clue what it was I started.  What I thought I started was not what I am doing today.  In other words, my original plan failed but ultimately my little business succeeded.

Take a risk.  Start something!

  What are you avoiding doing that you know needs to be done?”  We seem to have a talent for burying the truth, covering it up, distracting ourselves from it… When was the last time you took a risk in the direction of your dance?

Laurie Beth Jones

 

You Are Not A Computer – HBR

The Internet, and all it has come to include, is the most powerful interruption technology ever invented. It slices and dices our focus, fractures and distracts it, gives us less and less of more and more. It prompts us to skim, scan, and skip rather than immerse ourselves in any one thing.

Technology has no business setting our agenda, but it has turned into our dominatrix. Masochistically — but all too willingly — we submit to it. Emailing, texting and tweeting, searching Google, checking Facebook, and surfing websites not only consumes our time and energy, it also diminishes our capacity to pay attention to anything for very long — or to resist the next digital temptation.

via You Are Not A Computer (Try As You May) – Tony Schwartz – Harvard Business Review.

Effect of Aspirin on Vascular and Nonvascular Outcomes Meta-analysis

Conclusion: Despite important reductions in nonfatal MI, aspirin prophylaxis in people without prior CVD does not lead to reductions in either cardiovascular death or cancer mortality. Because the benefits are further offset by clinically important bleeding events, routine use of aspirin for primary prevention is not warranted and treatment decisions need to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

via Arch Intern Med — Abstract: Effect of Aspirin on Vascular and Nonvascular Outcomes: Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials, February 13, 2012, Seshasai et al. 172 3: 209.

Tablet and E-Book Reader Ownership Nearly Doubles

The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10% to 19% over the same time period.

The number of Americans owning at least one of these digital reading devices jumped from 18% in December to 29% in January.

via Tablet and E-book reader Ownership Nearly Double Over the Holiday Gift-Giving Period | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

Faithful followers are aware this author abandoned his Read a Book a Week project sometime in 2011.  Workload got very busy so I ultimately had to trade non-work reading time for revenue.  Not a bad trade-off but I still miss my recreational reading time.

I’ve owned a Kindle for over a year now and received a smart phone this past Christmas.  I can now access my Kindle books on my phone.  We’ll see if this helps me read more books this year.

Click through to the Pew website where you can download a PDF copy of this study.

The Advantages of the Middle-Age Brain -TIME.com

A study in the British Medical Journal lit up the Internet last week with the conclusion that cognitive decline begins at age 45. While it’s true that some innate skills like memory and speed of reasoning fall off as we age, other aspects of intelligence related to learning and experience actually improve.

via Patricia Cohen: The Advantages of the Middle-Age Brain | TIME Ideas | TIME.com.

Positive proof the older brain improves with time.  I found an article on some positive aspects of the aging brain.

Now if I could only remember where I put my car keys…

Bob MacDonald on What’s So Hard about Doing the Right Thing?

In the abstract it is easy to say that doing the right thing is – at the very least – reporting the improper activity. But what if your report seems to be ignored? Are you off the hook and have no further responsibility? Even worse, if you do report it and your boss survives with nothing more than a reprimand, what might this do to your personal well-being and your future with the company? In theory, of course, you could quit your job and find another; but in this economy, is that possible? Is now the right time to put you and your family’s financial future at risk? You could go halfway and say nothing while you look for another job, but is that the right thing to do?  This type of enigma is not an academic exercise. Anyone who has ever been in the business world, with ambitions to be successful and rise up the pyramid and support a family knows this type situation – and a wide variety of others – is more reality than theory. The real questions are: At what point are you willing to dilute or even trade in “doing the right thing,” to protect your career by “going along to get along”? At what point do you break and become willing to rationalize the elements of “doing the right thing?”

via What’s So Hard about Doing the Right Thing?.

Bob’s right.  Read his entire blog post to understand why it is not easy to do the right thing.  Thanks Bob and please keep writing and sharing.