Entries from April 2009 ↓

It has now been a full week since I started the low information diet, and so far I have only cheated a little bit.

My first piece of advice to any sports fan who wants to go on a low information diet is: Do not do it during the playoffs.  As it turns out, I’ve stuck to my vow not to watch any television, other than in social settings, but checking playoff scores has been the one area where I have fallen off the wagon.

In all other areas, however, I’ve stuck to the plan I set out.  I have not checked my RSS reader or any other news sites.  The only times I’ve logged in to a social network has been to respond to a direct message.  I’ve checked personal e-mail only once per day.  I have not read anything new since the beginning of the diet.

And what has the result been so far?

A lot of extra time.  I always knew that I spent a significant amount of time consuming information, but I never realized just how much otherwise productive time that actually represented. 

So, that must mean that I’ve been super-productive since this started, right?  Well, not quite.  I do believe that I’ve managed to write a bit more, but the increase in productivity has not been proportional to the increase in free time.  I have a theory that people only have a certain number of productive hours in them per day, and no matter how much free time they are given, they can not exceed that number.  That certainly has seemed to be the case for me.  Despite having more time, I have simply found new ways to procrastinate.  For example, I never knew how easy it was to waste time staring out one’s window.

My other theory is that perhaps one can increase the number of productive hours in a day through practice, like marathon training.  I suppose this is what the remainder of the experiment will focus on.

In terms of creativity, I have not noticed an impact
since I stopped consuming other creative works.  Perhaps it is too early. However, what I have found is that while creativity is often inspired by other works, inspiration can also be drawn from my own work.  If, for instance, I am working on a story, I can immerse myself in that story and draw on the setting of the story I have laid out to move it forward without drawing on outside sources.  Obviously, outside sources influence the direction, but the direct inspiration is the world that I have already created.  Partly for this reason, the lack of other materials has not negatively impacted my creativity.

Also, there is a side effect to a low information diet that I had not realized going in.  When one is consuming less information, one has to make up for this loss by consuming inspiration from other sources.  Without the fiction of other writers to fall back on, I have needed to find inspiration in everyday life. This does seem to make perfect sense because when you can not simply revert to old crutches for either gaining inspiration or getting information, you need to be far more present in all other interactions.  Because of a fear that the inspiration well will run out, I find myself looking for inspiration in every conversation, interaction and event.  This can only be a good thing, because these catalysts are unique to me and can not be said to be drawn from another author or artist.

Next week, I will report back on whether my productivity has increased any further, as well as any additional unexpected benefits or setbacks.

I looked at the calendar recently and noticed that over a quarter of the year has passed. If I were on schedule with 52 Short Stories, that would mean that I would have completed at least 13 short stories, and probably should be closer to 15 right now. As I write these words, I have just completed the eleventh. I believe that is what they call being behind schedule.

I could carry on about how things have been very hectic with traveling, professional and personal obligations, but that would be disingenuous. When I set out to write 52 short stories in a year, I knew that these kinds of situations would arise, so to act blindsided by them now would be whining. Instead, I looked for ways to rectify the situation by increasing my productivity.

I like working with goals that have fixed time limits and are either easily measurable, or are absolutes (either you did it, or you didn’t). However, most goals, as laudable as they may be, require more time or resources. Run for an hour twice a week for two months. Spend one hour per week practicing Spanish. Read fifty pages per day for a month. Etc. All of these take time, and while they can definitely produce results, taking up more time is the last thing I need to be doing right now. So, I looked for a productivity goal that would actually increase my time, and settled on a technique that I’ve been wanting to try for well over a year now: a low-information diet.

Tim Ferriss’ best-selling book, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, opened up a whole new world to a lot of people in terms of productivity, world travel, working philosophies, mini-retirements, investment strategies and much more. At best, it’s a guide to achieving a rich lifestyle free of traditional constraints. At worst, it’s an entertaining read. One of the many things that Tim advocates in the book is a low information diet. Rather than go into great detail about what it is, I will allow you to read Tim’s explanation or simply say that it’s basically the practice of eliminating a large number of inputs.

I am an information junkie. A few years ago I used to read four different newspapers. Now, it’s worse. I’m subscribed to the RSS feeds of more than four newspapers, in addition to a number of other sites and blogs. Also, at any given time I am reading between one and four books. I no longer have cable, but when I did, either CNN or Sports Center was always chattering away in the background – now I just get my fix when I’m visiting someone who does have cable. All this is to say, I have always spent large amounts of time consuming information.

The idea of a low information diet is that all of this is cut out, and that information that is truly important will eventually find its way back to you.

One of my biggest concerns in implementing a low information diet is not that I won’t know what’s going on in the world – although that might happen – but rather that I have always found inspiration in the information I consume. I have said before that I think inspiration can be drawn from any source, even one as mundane as a newspaper article. So, my biggest concern is, if I go on a low information diet, with the express purpose of creating more time to work on creative pursuits, will the well of creativity go dry making the extra time useless?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I figure that there is only one way to find out. For the rest of the month, I will be on a low information diet. I will not read my RSS reader. I will not read any new books. I will not check Twitter, Facebook or any other social network except if I’m alerted of a direct message. I will not watch any television unless it is in a social setting. I will check personal email only once per day.

In May I will report back on how this mini-experiment goes. If it’s going well, I may extend it. If it’s not, then I will chuck it and look for another way to create time.

Have you ever tried something similar? If so, how did it go? If not, have you ever considered it and decided against it?

Work and travel have been hectic of late, which has left me very little time to focus on other creative tasks.  Instead of ignoring this space, I’m posting something that is unrelated to the topics I usually cover, but that I thought some of the people who read this blog might find interesting.

What appears below is a portion of an e-mail that I sent to a group of friends recently. 

The most interesting thing that I’ve done lately is a business trip that I  took to San Francisco last week.  It was my first time in California, and I got to spend a half-day walking around San Fran.  Nice city.  The purpose of the trip was a bunch of meetings/trainings that I had with the folks at Google (yeah, that Google), and they took place at the Googleplex.  It was fun seeing the Google campus in a strange computer geek kind of way.  Here are a few facts I found interesting about Google: 

1. An employee of Google is referred to as a Googler.
2. All food on the Google campus is free.
3. There is an unwritten design rule at the Google campus whereby you should not be further than 100 feet away from food and coffee at any time when in one of the buildings.
4. There is a lot of food and coffee around.
5. There is a T-Rex skeleton on the property.  His name is Stan.
6. The Google on-site store is in beta.
7. The first thing that I was asked to do when arriving on the Google campus was sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Now that I’ve opened myself up to litigation, I think I’ll sign off.