Innovation/motivation
Technology invasion
Missed Opportunities
Innovation, is it a product of motivation or does motivation
create innovation...
Hold
on, before we go there. It is already the end of the second month of 2013 and
we just sent out our holiday cards. Maybe they should have been Valentine cards
or St. Patrick's Day or maybe, because time is flying by so quickly that a
holiday card is OK, and we are ahead of time...:)
It
seems like the only real time it slows is when I have to pay the household
bills, and sometimes it seems that I pay them twice a month. Have you ever had
this conversation with the utility or cable company, "What do you mean I didn't pay you this month, it was just yesterday that I sent it....oh it was last
month....really!" The on-line payment options and the direct
bank payments are so simple and it does not take long to spend the monthly
income. The memory lasts a very short period of time. It seems that when I had
to write out checks, put them in an envelope and get them stamped and mailed it
made an impact and I remembered that I did it..Is technology an invasion, making time fly by faster,
creating a false impression that it "saves time" but really it takes
away time? Technology , in my opinion, makes time go by so much faster!
Most of
you who know me would say, that this is very odd subject for me, as I love
technology and can’t wait to get my hands on the next techy thing that has been
invented. In fact I do, but this thought occurred to me this week as I paid
some bills that I thought I had just paid; spent time transferring to my laptop
the data that I created on my desk top getting ready for travel; dumped the
same data onto my Google cloud, just in case; backed up everything to my remote
drive for safe keeping; created quick access notes in Evernote; located a pen
or two that would not explode at high altitudes; found a spiral notebook for
hand written notes, just in case; made sure that all the apps were on all the
tools; charged up the Livescribe pen, the Laptop, the Tablet and the smart
phone; inventoried and bagged all necessary cords and plugs for charging
on the road; packed the bag for a 2 day trip to Reno; checked into the flight
and downloaded the boarding pass; printed off the itinerary with confirmation
codes, flight times, hotel names and addresses, and rental car information and
finally printed my to-do list for the next two days, week and month. This just
to get out of the house...call me paranoid, but in the last 13 years I have
flown someplace nearly every week and believe me, no matter what kind of
"cloud insurance" they create, these are learned habits that will
never go away until I stop. But, they do eat up time, create anxiety and
increase in complexity every time I fall for another new Technology. (And when my
wife and I take a trip, I do the same, and my wife makes a point to remind me
each time)
On the
way to the airport I have the phone connected to a blue tooth speaker and to
Pandora. Arrival at the airport means creating a reminder of where I
parked through my parking APP. I check email, Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter and
see who has commented on the BLOG. I open the boarding pass at the TSA line,
show my ID and because I fly so much go through the pre-check line without
taking off my shoes, belt, coat and no longer do I take my computer out of the
bag. Saves time, and increases productivity before boarding. One of my favorite
times has always been the flight without the internet and email. But now for
only a small fee of 5 bucks I can access the internet and send and receive
email, work on the calendar and basically there is no time for rest, just continue to
work.
Sure
technology has allowed me to do more things quicker, but for some reason it has
not created these big gaping time voids that allow for napping, exercise,
vacation or other potential time stoppers.
The most
annoying and time consuming issue lately has been those "updates" that
come from Microsoft and cannot wait until the day is done. When they start installing
update 1-5 and it takes 10 minutes for the first one, you might as well go for
a long break....wait a minute maybe Microsoft is trying to slow down time;
maybe this the point, it is time to take a break...go for a bike ride, 18 holes
or write a Blog update...you decide!
I came
across a couple of good articles around the same topic of free time. First this
one, http://m.inc.com/?incid=46788, "Get Back More Free
Time: 3 Tips, and the second one is more in line with my last post, http://m.inc.com/?incid=46786, "How to Create Your
Long-Term Vision" .
By the Way... my father use to tell me that innovation was
driven by need, so I guess you can say that need becomes the motivation.
Innovation takes vision, creativity, and patience. Innovation has been a
very large part of creating the American dream and it continues to be the one
thing that holds it together. How do we teach innovation in our schools?
Happy Reading!
