The Local Wisdom Blog

The Times of UK just posted an article that talks about how we can’t work properly amid a barrage of emails, texts and tweets.

We need to clear our minds and focus on what matters, but it’s a tough job when we are bombarded with 34 gigabytes of information a day. That’s about 8 to 9 full length movies.

Being a business owner doesn’t help there are so many tasks, decisions, distractions, priorities, procedues, and interactions that we must mentally manage. It feels like balancing a bunch of spinning plates.

Here are some of the habits that I do to help manage my mental:

Exercise
I try to hit the gym before work. In the book Brain Rules, John Medina talks about how our brains developed while our bodies were in a constant state of movement. Our ancestors used to hike an average of 12 miles a day.

Take breaks
The brain becomes retroactive after 20 minutes of focus. Take a break by getting up and walking around. Not by watching TV or browsing the Internet.

Give attention to people
Q: What’s more important than your laptop? A: The people you work with. We are inturrpted by co-workers quite often. It’s easy to passively interact with them continuing to work on the computer. Instead ask for a moment, get to a good place with what you were doing, then turn and talk to your co-worker.

More pencil and paper
Computer programs can help you with more than it really can. The truth is that the best way to be creative is with a paper and pencil. Those two simple tools are not bound by the rules of a program. Is I don’t use a computer to take notes, outline presentations, or brainstorm mindmapping.

Talk through things
Again bringing focus to people over computers: I’ll start an email, stop halfway, then either pick up the phone or walk over to someones desk to simply talk to them. I reserve emails for precursor conversations, simple questions and answers, scheduling time, and sharing files.

Check out the original article: Have we forgotten how to concentrate?

Thanks you Steve Rubel for the link.

If you have more tips for us/me that you use in your work/mental balance post a comment.

Found this while posting the last post, 9 Technologies to help bring down the costs of our healthcare systems.  I’ve put a couple the ones I thought were amazing below, but you can read the whole article here.  Some are simple changes to current tech and some are complete revamps, but awesome all around.  Funny thing, I bet you no one will complain that we’re putting a bunch of lab workers or doctors out of jobs with this tech.  But when we try to implement technologies to make local and federal government more efficient and need less workers, everyone goes crazy about job security.

Didn’t mean to go off topic, by NJ is bankrupt but everytime they try to cut people out to save money, it turns into a huge protest and I’m tired to paying some of the highest property taxes in the nation….

Medical Acoustics Lung Flute

“People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease might be able to scale back on their meds by instead using this $40 reusable instrument (also a PopSci Best of What’s New award winner) that sends vibrations into the lungs to break up mucus. Make sure to check out the video of the Lung Flute in action, starring Senior Associate Editor Bjorn Carey and His Mucus.”

Insulin Made From Flowers

“Americans with diabetes shell out some $132 billion a year for insulin, which usually comes from genetically engineered yeast or bacteria. But Canadian scientists can make it cheaper. They inserted the human insulin gene into the common safflower plant, which churns out the drug for a fraction of the cost. Just 25 square miles of the crop could make insulin for the entire world.”

Seemed pretty relevant after looking outside Remember, bend at knees, not the waist…

So it always a marvel to me how your chest could be opened up and your heart tampered with, and you could be walking the next day. Or how they could send a tube up your thigh and into your brain and you can be fine the next day.

Needless to say the human body has been studied through the ages and we know just about everything there is to know.

Well, not everything. Cracked.com posted an article: 6 Things Your Body Does Every Day That Science Can’t Explain.

I know this has nothing to do with websites, but it reminds me that in our infinite studying of all things there are still things that we haven’t come to understand and the things we do understand can always be questioned.

Being a business owner and employee who started out in the basement, I’ve learned a lot about what you have to go through. People always say its wonderful to be your own boss, but there is a heavy price to pay for that.

Christina Fake is the co founder of Hunch and former co founder of Flickr. She’s done this a few times. Here is a great article by Christine that delves into working hard vs. working smart.

I’ve seen a lot of hard working entrepreneurs fail, and I’ve come to the conclusion that working hard, while never a bad thing, is not really the magic thing that leads to great inventions or successful outcomes.

Working Hard is Overrated

No duh!!!!  First thing I noticed when smoking was banned in public places in New Jersey was that I didn’t smell horrible when I came home from  a bar or lounge.  Of course not being around so much smoke will affect everyone’s health, especially the people sucking in that 2nd hand smoke.   The percentage of heart attacks reduced is very impressive… Can you image how many heart attacks we could stop if we banned Lobbists ???

“Smoking bans in public places can significantly reduce the number of heart attacks, two U.S. research teams reported on Monday.

One team found smoking bans in the United States, Canada and Europe had an immediate effect that increased over time, cutting heart attacks by 17 percent after the first year and as much as 36 percent after three years, they reported in the journal Circulation.

A second team found such bans reduced the annual heart attack rate by 26 percent. Their report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology estimates a nationwide ban in the United States could prevent as many as 154,000 heart attacks each year.”

Read Whole Story here

The Right Temporo-Parietal Junction, a portion of your brain just above your right ear is the part of your brain that helps us to understand other peoples’ frame of mind.

As UX practicioners, designers, and every developers we are always sensing the motivations and feels of people who will be using the websites we create.

Listen to Rebecca Saxe share fascinating lab work that uncovers how the brain thinks about other peoples’ thoughts — and judges their actions.

I do clean my showerheads every time I clean the shower, but it is amazing how quickly it can build up with if you don’t clean it.  I would never have thought it could be harmful, but it does make sense.  What was really scary was the line that says about showerheads “which blast them into easily inhaled aerosol form.”

“People with normal immune systems have little to fear, but these microbes could be a concern for folks with cystic fibrosis or AIDS, people who are undergoing cancer treatment or those who have had a recent organ transplant.

The researchers offer suggestions for the wary, such as getting all-metal showerheads, which microbes have a harder time clinging to.

Still, showerheads are full of nooks and crannies, making them hard to clean, the researchers note, and the microbes come back even after treatment with bleach.

People who have filtered showerheads could replace the filter weekly, added co-author Laura K. Baumgartner. And, she said, baths don’t splash microbes into the air as much as showers, which blast them into easily inhaled aerosol form.”

Read whole story here

Our good friend Melissa just posted an interesting article about Blackbag, an iPhone app that keeps doctors on the latest greatest in medicine news and therapy.

You might see your doctor using the iPhone on your next visit.

So yea I saw Food, Inc., and yea I saw Wal-Mart in the mix doing its efforts to match their purchasing power with consumers’ demand for green and sustainable products.

So Wal-Mart just released its Sustainability Index.

The idea is to reflect their huge buying power with that of consumer mindset. For instance Wal-Mart stopped selling baby bottles made from Bisphenol-A.

The initiative starts with Wal-Mart sending a pretty in-depth survey of their product. You can only images what will happen next.

Cheer’s to Wal-Mart for making moves in this arena.