Slashdot Mirror
The Age of Speed
enactd writes "I feel life is a constant juggle, for every task in hand you have another to react to or let drop. The Age of Speed helps you chart your tasks to keep the important goals in sight while recognizing and reacting to distractions. Being a geek on the cutting edge of technology gets one acquainted with speed quickly, but being able to handle it is another matter and streamlining is an ongoing effort. The goal of the book is to help you decide what is important in your life and extract as much pleasure from those things while minimizing the time spent on the mundane." Keep reading for the rest of Chris's review.
The Age of Speed
author
Vince Poscente
pages
215
publisher
Bard Press
rating
8.5
reviewer
Chris Alan
ISBN
978-1-885167-67-5
summary
Tips on getting more done with the time you have.
The beginning of the book deals with shedding the guilt most people associate with getting things done quickly. We are lead to believe at an early age that shortcuts diminish the reward or the experience of a task. While there are some tasks where this holds true, overall it is a common myth one needs to overcome in the age of speed.
My favorite anecdote was a fresh look at the Tortoise and the Hare. The common moral one associates with this fable is "Slow and steady wins the race." But the story isn't a condemnation on speed, rather against stupidity. The Hare lost simply because he was dumb enough to take a nap in the middle of the race, in no way did his speed work against him.
One of the major sections of the book splits personalities up into four categories, Zeppelins, Balloons, Bottle Rockets and Jets. The tech world mostly consists of Bottle Rockets and Jets, as long as you don't include managers. The Jets run smoothly and routinely hit their targets while the Bottle Rockets follow pets.com off the cliff.
Whenever I'm behind the wheel and someone asks if I know where I'm going I reply, "Nope, but I'm going to get there quickly." While I'm usually joking, it perfectly sums up the attitude of a Bottle Rocket. While a Jet has a single target and maintains focus until it's task is complete, a Bottle Rocket constantly changes it's target and never seems to be able to hit it before being distracted by a new goal, leaving a wake of unfinished debris. Obviously one should strive to be a Jet.
I finished this book two weeks ago. I started writing the review immediately after finishing the book, but I wanted to see how applying the principles helped me out. My favorite section was titled Aerodynamics and led to an immediate change in how I approach working.
Sometimes I find myself falling into a black hole of needless distractions, constantly switching between email, Twitter, Slashdot and any other diversion I reward myself with throughout the day. If I have too many distractions in a short amount of time I'll fall into a pseudo trance of cycling through them endlessly. Afterward I'm at square one with getting back on task. Directly after reading the chapter An Exercise in Consciousness I turned off my email auto checker. This simple change transformed my work environment from an interruptive process to one I'm in control of. By removing the interruption I don't have the temptation to succumb to distractions and I've felt much more productive.
The only time the author had me rolling my eyes was the shameless self promotion of referencing the Age of Speed throughout the book. If I were reviewing this book for a more general audience I would have rated it a point higher, but people in the technology sector don't have the same speed hang ups as most people, negating some of the insights of the book. However, there are plenty of pointers for even the most hardcore tech geek. Surviving in an always on World is easy, the key is learning how to prosper.
You can purchase The Age of Speed from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
My favorite anecdote was a fresh look at the Tortoise and the Hare. The common moral one associates with this fable is "Slow and steady wins the race." But the story isn't a condemnation on speed, rather against stupidity. The Hare lost simply because he was dumb enough to take a nap in the middle of the race, in no way did his speed work against him.
One of the major sections of the book splits personalities up into four categories, Zeppelins, Balloons, Bottle Rockets and Jets. The tech world mostly consists of Bottle Rockets and Jets, as long as you don't include managers. The Jets run smoothly and routinely hit their targets while the Bottle Rockets follow pets.com off the cliff.
Whenever I'm behind the wheel and someone asks if I know where I'm going I reply, "Nope, but I'm going to get there quickly." While I'm usually joking, it perfectly sums up the attitude of a Bottle Rocket. While a Jet has a single target and maintains focus until it's task is complete, a Bottle Rocket constantly changes it's target and never seems to be able to hit it before being distracted by a new goal, leaving a wake of unfinished debris. Obviously one should strive to be a Jet.
I finished this book two weeks ago. I started writing the review immediately after finishing the book, but I wanted to see how applying the principles helped me out. My favorite section was titled Aerodynamics and led to an immediate change in how I approach working.
Sometimes I find myself falling into a black hole of needless distractions, constantly switching between email, Twitter, Slashdot and any other diversion I reward myself with throughout the day. If I have too many distractions in a short amount of time I'll fall into a pseudo trance of cycling through them endlessly. Afterward I'm at square one with getting back on task. Directly after reading the chapter An Exercise in Consciousness I turned off my email auto checker. This simple change transformed my work environment from an interruptive process to one I'm in control of. By removing the interruption I don't have the temptation to succumb to distractions and I've felt much more productive.
The only time the author had me rolling my eyes was the shameless self promotion of referencing the Age of Speed throughout the book. If I were reviewing this book for a more general audience I would have rated it a point higher, but people in the technology sector don't have the same speed hang ups as most people, negating some of the insights of the book. However, there are plenty of pointers for even the most hardcore tech geek. Surviving in an always on World is easy, the key is learning how to prosper.
You can purchase The Age of Speed from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
And where does one get the time to read this book, exactly?
Work like a tortoise and play like a rabbit - that sums it up!
~Once you have your choices narrowed down, the rest will fall into place.
I read the entire review and I still don't know if the reviewer ever found out exactly how old speed is.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
Humans were not meant to multitask.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
Don't spend your time reading self-help books.
I'll probably pick up a copy of this- it's an important issue. Frankly, we're probably getting to a point that time management needs to be addressed in early education, because we all need some principles just to get through the day.
I wonder if the author did an analysis of how the Age of Speed helped Wall St. to come to its fabulous current state.
The reviewer says we "live in the age of speed." Maybe so. I see plenty of people doing things too quickly. But does that mean we live in the "age of speed?" How does it differ from the age of non-speed? Is it an improvement, an inevitability? Did we lose something? Would the financial disaster we're in right now have been better off without so much speed?
Before reading more about how to cope with the age of speed, I'd prefer to see something explaining just what it is. Otherwise I'm sure not going to spend my valuable time reading it. Right now it just sounds like a buzz phrase.
Stop wasting your time reading slashdot.
I dealt with all the things I have to 'juggle' by dropping the biggest that I didn't particularly like: work. It's great because now I have so much more time. Of course it has the side effect of now I live on the street, but really that's so much better because I don't have to 'juggle' other things like wash the toilet, vacuum the floor, or even take a shower. My life is simple now.
Qxe4
Prediction: It will be found in six months laying in the "nearly free" bin in the bookstore, along with "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", and "Change Your Underwear, Change Your Life."
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The best way to manage speed is not to abuse it. Too much leads to a coronary, and too little leads to not enough time in your day(having a day shorter than 28 hours leaves me with too much to do the next day).
So, whether you inject, inhale, or ingest your speed, be sure do to so in moderation.
I care about getting them done effortlessly. We need to automate the mundane completely to leave us more time for our mindless distractions. In truth we probably need to maintain some stress in our lives to avoid becoming shapeless blobs.
What?
Oh yes, leave the coffee. it does you no good, just increases anxiety. if you can't go a day without a fix, you need help, not more caffeine.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
a Farscape reference? :D
My favorite anecdote was a fresh look at the Tortoise and the Hare. The common moral one associates with this fable is "Slow and steady wins the race." But the story isn't a condemnation on speed, rather against stupidity. The Hare lost simply because he was dumb enough to take a nap in the middle of the race, in no way did his speed work against him.
The lesson here wasn't "speed is bad" or that "the hare lost simply because he was dumb enough to take a nap." I've always read it more like: you can't let yourself get overly-confident in one of your particular strengths to the point where you take your superiority for granted and stop trying your hardest.
You see it often enough that someone is good at doing something quickly, but they're sloppy about it. Or they're smart, but they don't think things through thoroughly. Being smart and fast are great additions to being a disciplined hard worker-- but they aren't good replacements.
This review completely failed to sell me on the book. The user seems very excited by it, but the suggestions are in themselves, rather mundane. The assumptions and analysis in the beginning is flat out wrong. Here's my review of the review:
The beginning of the book deals with shedding the guilt most people associate with getting things done quickly. We are lead to believe at an early age that shortcuts diminish the reward or the experience of a task. While there are some tasks where this holds true, overall it is a common myth one needs to overcome in the age of speed.
Who exactly has guilt at getting things done quickly? Most people I know get things done too quickly, because they are lazy, and don't do it right the first time. The one or two people who take too long and don't use shortcuts are people who are either too lazy to change their routine, or are overthinking the problem. But now more than ever we are all about quick.
My favorite anecdote was a fresh look at the Tortoise and the Hare. The common moral one associates with this fable is "Slow and steady wins the race." But the story isn't a condemnation on speed, rather against stupidity. The Hare lost simply because he was dumb enough to take a nap in the middle of the race, in no way did his speed work against him.
The fable of the tortoise and the hare has never been a condemnation of speed. The author has created this false "reanalysis" to sell the book. We all get the fable, and know what it means, that's why it's timeless.
Whenever I'm behind the wheel and someone asks if I know where I'm going I reply, "Nope, but I'm going to get there quickly." While I'm usually joking, it perfectly sums up the attitude of a Bottle Rocket. While a Jet has a single target and maintains focus until it's task is complete, a Bottle Rocket constantly changes it's target and never seems to be able to hit it before being distracted by a new goal, leaving a wake of unfinished debris. Obviously one should strive to be a Jet.
From here out, the review basically describes something that doesn't take an entire book. Humans don't do well if they try to multitask too much. Multitasking doesn't make you more productive. Sometimes it's necessary (I have to take questions all day at my job while working on a specific task) but you are never more productive.
So basically you are describing a self help book for teenagers and college students who haven't learned yet that all this blogging/twittering/emailing/chatting at the same time is not productive. When you are home enjoying yourself and relaxing, and you relax by having multiple inputs, that's great, but when you are working, shut it all off. Most hardcore geeks understand this, and if they don't, their friends, coworkers, or managers are telling them so. Outside the geek realm, you have your parents constantly telling you to get off the chat rooms if you expect to get your homework done.
There I saved everyone the price of the book.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
To Faster by Gleick
Best Slashdot Co
tl;dr
I think that multitasking often gets in the way of quality work. Fundamentally, human beings don't really multitask very well. For small things like talking ans walking at the same time, we can do it but for big things that require our full attention, we fail miserably. For things that require concentration, multitasking gets in the way of doing quality work. For those times, turn off the pager and the cell phone. The problem is that the boss often will not let us and bothers us with trivia.
Zeppelins, Balloons, Bottle Rockets and Jets
So what is management, an anti-aircraft gun?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Age of Empires...of Speed?
Synopsis: There's two rival gangs of Speed dealers, some travel via jet, some wear jet packs of bottle rockets.
Gang#1 distributes their Speed via rabbits, while the other gang uses turtles.
Each gang recuits & trains their pushers, then it all ends in an epic battle (with Led Zeppelin playing in the background) declaring one gang the winner.
The winner gets a ballon with their name on it.
It all sounds good & fun, but I'm holding out for Age of Epires of Speed: The Speedy dynasties.
Back when I worked for a big corporation full of PHBs, my boss insisted that everyone maintain their schedule in Outlook. So I went in and marked 8 hours of every work day as "Working". This made it impossible for anyone to schedule me into a meeting unless they contacted me, explained the agenda and why it was important for me to attend, and had me clear a space on my schedule.
Within a couple of years, I had made it to the top of the 'high performers' list, with all of the bonuses and perks that entailed.
Modern technology makes it too easy for people to consume your time by placing their action items onto your queue with not cost to them. The key is to increase that cost so they don't bug you with trivial shit. Cell phones are another example. Really Important People don't spend as much time yakking on them in their cars or at other inconvenient times. Peons and other assorted minions on short leashes do so. If people need to reach me, they'll make an appointment.
Have gnu, will travel.
Fast. Good. Cheap.
Pick any two.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Please learn what commas are for. Please do not use them instead of semicolons and full stops (or periods if you're American). Otherwise it is quite hard to read your review.
An example: I could have said, please learn what commas are for, please do you now use them instead of semicolons and full stops, otherwise it is quite hard to read your review.
Thanks.
...Slashdot? Or, did I need this distraction to learn about needless distractions? Ouch, my head hurts!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKQ-xj5C2m8
Pussies.
Fstr, a book by James Gleick (or Chaos fame)
His book is more about making you reflect about the ever increasingly faster society than actually help you speed up, but it's an enlightening read never the less.
http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Acceleration-Just-About-Everything/dp/067977548X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237833148&sr=8-5
^C
My favorite anecdote was a fresh look at the Tortoise and the Hare.
Eh. I prefer the one with Bugs Bunny where the tortoise had rocket propulsion hidden in his shell. Moral of the story: bring a gun to a knife fight.
in its hype deserves NOT to be read.
Another waste of time brought to you by Stuff that DOESN'T
matter.
Yours In Communism,
Kilgore Trout
Somebody needs some Slack.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
We are lead to believe at an early age that shortcuts diminish the reward or the experience of a task.
Besides, proofing is overrated anyway...
(It should be: "We are led to believe".)
Just from the Slashdot summary alone, I'm placing this book among the ranks of the useless "self improvement/self help" tripe out there.
People are generally impatient when they want things. This is part of the human condition. Technology allows many things to happen more quickly. People, in their impatience, leverage these technologies - and by collectively doing so time and time again, it becomes the "norm" or "standard". People stop planning as far ahead for important things, assuming this "faster delivery time" can be expected/counted on ... and that gives us a perception that we're living in this "Age of Speed".
The thing is, you can read all of these books you want, in some attempt to "improve your own situation". But you can't change the fact that FedEx can deliver a package half way across the world overnight. You can't change the fact that email shows up in a recipient's inbox the second the sender clicks the "send" button. And you definitely can't change the thought processes of business owners who realized technology allows them to process orders at a faster pace, and therefore generate more income per day than they used to.
Ultimately? It comes down to you deciding how many "impatient people" you want to try to cater to. You do stand to gain financially by participating in the "rat race" -- but you can't keep running *all the time* without a break. You have to make your own lifestyle choices and compromises, to find a happy medium.
I've noticed a pretty drastic difference when traveling. If I visit many of the southern states in the US, or even some of the less populated parts of my own midwestern state, there's FAR less overall sense of urgency to get things done. "I'll get to it as soon as possible!" often means "some time before the week is over", vs. "We know you're expecting it today, so I'm trying to get somebody on it this afternoon or by tomorrow morning!"
A more useful tool would be Tony Robbins' OPA / RPM (he renamed his own technology!) -- he developed some compelling time management techniques that involve prioritizing and focusing. Unfortunately this didn't seem to sell and is long gone, but fortunately bittorrent and other sources have MP3s of the original cassettes (warning: padded out mercilessly by rambling anecdotes) and you can glean the method from that. Sad to say, he never put this information in book form. But if you get the basic gist of the OPA (outcome/purpose/action) it is a good technique: It focuses on doing tasks purposefully with the expectation of gaining an outcome you want, not just making and checking off a to-do list or frittering away time. I don't know what this book has to offer, but I'd look at OPA / RPM first. (RPM is "rapid planning method" -- for whatever reason, Robbins renamed OPA to RPM.)
That helps me keep my Meth Fresh, I'm all for it.
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
I finished this book two weeks ago. I started writing the review immediately after finishing the book, but I wanted to see how applying the principles helped me out.
Perhaps they didn't help you out at all, if it took you two weeks to finish an 8 paragraph review?
Unfortunately, the review didn't give enough to go on as far as why the book was good. I'm gonna go ahead and file this away with the various other "time management" systems, right along with "GTD" and others: it very likely takes more time to follow the program than you lose by trying to do too many things at once.
When somebody comes up with a good way to organize all of the /information/ that we deal with every day - and by good I mean "not requiring time or attention", give me a call.
I turned off my email auto checker. This simple change transformed my work environment from an interruptive process to one I'm in control of.
Dunno, I have my auto-checker turned on, complete with annoying little sounds for mail from "important people." This saves me from having to check to see if I have new mail, unless there really is some from someone important. It's e-mail, if I'm busy, it will wait.
Wish the same were true for the mobile spouse support line (cellphone).
No Goals, No Future!
I am guilty of not doing things quickly. I have been ridiculed for years on how quickly I tie my shoes, for instance.
I try to do it faster, but I don't see how it can be done much faster, frankly, and I make sure the things are tied well so that I do not have to do it again.
Mindfulness seems to be slipping away. With twitter and facebook and god knows what else, it really feels like the soul has gone out of much of what we do each day.
I see this all the time in my work: People want to have their finances done in a flash without thinking or answering any fundamental questions about their life. When we cave and make a recommendation because people "just want an answer" they will often come back angry later on because they have no idea what we actually did for them, or they see no value in what has been done for them. The advisors who seem to prosper are the ones who brush off doing any really solid work and explain/charm away any difficult issues with their clients. Those of us who may overthink it, but often bring very key issues to light as a result of it, seem to have been relegated to the role of dinosaur. If you're looking for what happened on Wallstreet, I'd say that's it right there.
I am really sick of "The Age of Speed". We should strive for optimal mindfulness in each action we take, not slipshod whizzbang idiocy, which often seems to be called "clever" or "smart" by speed-freaks and know-it-alls.
People can only do so much, but I'd really like to see other opinions on this.
-
It's pretty doubtful that "we all know what it means." It's not a simple paradox, though it was insightfully lampooned by Bugs Bunny. It's basicaly about infinite division...and, as adequately pointed out by Bugs, this:
"In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead."
--Aristotle, Physics VI
It has nothing whatever to do with taking naps, though most people think it is and nothing more.
Slow down and cut the crap out. Cut off from computer/internet/tv/gadgets on weekends. Just coffee and newspaper/magazine on the porch does it for me. If all the technological efficiencies do not give me more time to relax and enjoy life then they are not worth it.
As a juggler, it's a little annoying when people use juggling as an analogy and get it wrong. So here's an explanation of juggling and how to do it, whether it's clubs or tasks.
It's all in the throw, not in the catch. If the throw is perfect, the catch happens without any corrections or concious thought.
You may have two hands, but your two eyes can only look at one thing at a time. Jugglers just peep at the object as it arcs over and downwards, and that's enough to tell them where and when to stick out a hand and catch it. This has been confirmed experimentally using opaque glasses to block off the view of the objects except around about the top of the arc.
Once you get beyond juggling three objects, you peep at the object but then you have to remember how it's falling while you peep at another, before you stick out your hand to catch the first object. So 1) consistency is hugely important and 2) you have to practise daily until it's completely automatic.
The most important tool for juggling is gravity. That's how jugglers stack the objects and know where and when they'll fall. If gravity wavered, it'd bring the pattern down. You have to know what to expect. Remember in Firefly how something unexpected would happen, and it'd turn out they'd prepared for that contingency? Same thing, really.
Now let's apply the theory of juggling to 'juggling' a bunch of tasks. You have to be able to give each task some impetus and then move on, knowing the point at which you'll have to return to that task. You have to have some method, equivalent to the way jugglers use gravity, that smoothly handles the tasks while your attention is elsewhere. Finally, you have to make it funny. Or perhaps that only applies to juggling? Well, analogies can only be stretched so far.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
Aerodynamics are important! I plan on coming into work tomorrow dressed entirely in low-friction spandex, complete with a skull-fitting hood and matching boots. Googles, too. That way, everyone will recognize that I'm on the fast track, slowing down for nothing, not even air resistance.
As a bonus, if my goggles are sufficiently dark, I can sleep through meetings as well.
I'm now typing so fast, spell-check can't keep up. Yeehaw!
It pretty much explains exactly why the age of speed exists at all and why it's coming to an end Real Soon Now.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
Deleted
Turning off new mail notification is buried deep inside Outlook 2003's options. I made a cheat sheet for those who are interested: How_to_turn_off_outlook_notification.png
Yawn. If you want more interesting reading about speed and technology check out something by Paul Virilio or about him like "Paul Virilio: Theorist for an accelerated Culture". He's not garbage like this lame analogy dude. Personally I find it frightening that his book Pure War reads as good today as it did when it was first published.
My review is on this review of the original review of the book. I found it to be a snarky piece that questions the worth of the original review and even the book it reviews. Its main argument is that the book and review only contain obvious points.
There I saved everyone the time needed to read that 10 paragraph Review of the Review of the book.
I'm a big tall mofo.
dumbs never read it
smarties already done it
My blog "Overthinking Man" http://overthinkingman.blogspot.com/ is a rebellious daily observation of my own defeat by living in the Age of Speed. A shameless self promotion- sorry.
As it happens, I was reading this just last night.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/07/business/talking-management-with-john-cleese-soldier-convention-agent-change-rebuff.html
A bottle rocket is one of two things: an energetic talent seeking alignment between aptitude and ambition, or deicing the wings with discount Vodka.
As far as being a jet is concerned, the direct flight from Gander to Boise is highly overrated.
Me too, or as George Harrison put it what if we gained the world and lost our souls? Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to take a long walk in the woods, 100% "non productive," and it will make you feel more alive and free. Try it sometime and see... If you think the actual Buddha sat around and worried about how "productive" he was you are kidding yourself.
Remember too boys and girls oh so "productive" bankster CEOs caused the American economy to collapse.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Is technology leading to social change, specifically to give me more time. Let's have some technology that lets me work 35 hour work weeks, or have every other Friday off. i doubt the powers that be have any such interest. If we become more efficient, they'll just make us make more widgets in the same amount of time and fire some people. That's what they've done so far.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!