Time management in the digital age: how social influences the perception of importance

As for me, I have unsubscribed from about thirty newsletters in the last few weeks (there are too many left, but I will think about it). And do you know how I chose them? Simple, I eliminated the ones I had never opened even once, which only generated me unconscious anxiety, the famous FOMO (fear of missing out, who knows what I'm missing in these e-mails I never open).

There are other criteria from which we can draw, if not rules, at least inspiration. I still quote Hari and his The Stolen Attention, where he identifies with the metaphor of light the different levels of attention and concentration to be able to keep alert. The first level is the spotlight, the circumscribed light we put on to make ourselves a coffee or find our glasses. The second level is starlight, the one we devote to long-term goals: when you feel lost, look up at the stars to remember the direction in which you are travelling. The third level is daylight: if everything is not brightly lit, how can you see your surroundings well and focus on the direction that you have only glimpsed with starlight? Finally, stadium light: 'our ability to see each other and work together to formulate common goals and strive to achieve them'.

In micro terms, if the concept of what is important is changing and we are increasingly struggling upstream to decide what is and what is not (and if we struggle for ourselves, who knows how we do for our interlocutors, be they colleagues, customers, collaborators), there is perhaps a counter-intuitive opportunity: instead of investing more time in figuring out what is most important, so as to direct the highest quality there, try not to go crazy, and prefer a (slightly) lower quality, which can be applied to more things. Let me explain myself with an example borrowed from social media: many content creators have realised that it makes more sense to publish short content frequently, worrying to a certain extent about whether it is good material or not, and then letting followers decide whether it is more or less successful. So why not think about something similar, at least on the many routine activities that each of us does? Certainly not all activities and not all professions lend themselves to it: if I am a traffic policeman, a surgeon or an aeroplane pilot, it is not like I can throw it on quantity, and if they do not all work, so be it. At the same time, sticking to the routine, and especially for those who tend towards perfectionism, understood as a deleterious obsession with quality, it might be interesting to reduce control and accept a level that is not optimal; counting on the fact that if nothing is eternal, perhaps even good can go. So as to be able to do more good things, at the same time as doing less good things.

It may not be enough, in a world where any artificial intelligence produces a result that is perhaps only decent, but in a few hundredths of a second. At the same time, until we can fully delegate the most time-consuming routines, why not try?

*Partner of Newton Spa