Middlefocus

If you are anything like me when you use social media apps like Facebook and Twitter then you know how time somehow slips by without you realising it.  On some social media, I manage different accounts within the same platform so the problem simply gets bigger. Rather than cut out social browsing and interaction completely I decided instead to take a different approach.  I grouped the various apps into a folder on my iPad and iPhone - I'm sure this is possible to do on Android devices as well.  This hides them to an extent which means that I have to go look for the folder among other groups.  I decided also, at least for the time being, to add the clock app in the folder as well.  That means that it is readily available for setting the timer to limit how long I want to spend browsing.  An advantage is that closing the Facebook app for example brings you back to the folder where others such as LinkedIn and Instagram can be readily accessed. Then when ...

You know that moment? You see something and straightaway it reminds you of something else. There I was in a little coffee shop when I spotted a clever and so simple means of showing what the day's food offerings were.  The menu was presented on a large roll of brown wrapping paper attached to one of the walls making it easily visible and yet well out of the way.  All that's needed each time the menu changes is for someone to tear off the previous choices; pull down a clean portion and add the new.    Clever and so simple. And that reminded me of a proponent of Simplicity - Dr Edward de Bono - who in 1998 provided us a book of the same name.  He gave us many other ways to think of course, including his ground-breaking Six Thinking Hats.  In a post some years back on decision-making I mentioned his PMI technique which you might like to come back to here . Why did it remind me of Dr de Bono? I had the great good fortune to be present at one of hi...