Many of us are SO addicted to media, books, TV, crackberries and the like that we have completely trashed our bandwidth for assigning relevance to individual bits of information. It’s all one giant cultural RSS feed, and our “mental newsreader” is simply taking in information without assimilating or making connections.
While it’s true that our brains can take in significantly more information that we can process consciously, this is not true of information assimilation. In fact, our brain will occasionally shut down if it feels threatened by the amount of stimulus we are receiving. It will only recognize things for which we have a stored pattern, and we can once again end up in a rut. It is important that we take in the right amount of stimulus, but not so much that our brains shift into survival mode.
How much stimulus is too much? It’s different for everyone. Here are a few questions that can help along the way:
1. Do you feel overwhelmed? (too much stimulus)
2. Do you feel bored creatively? (too little stimulus)
3. Are you reverting to the same patterns over and over? (could be either)
4. Does the idea of new information make you queazy? (too much stimulus)
5. Are you frequently agitated or irritable? (too much stimulus)
6. Do you constantly have some kind of media playing in the background? (too much stimulus)
7. Do empty spaces in conversation and silence make you uneasy? (too much stimulus)
8. Do you know who Nick Lache is currently dating? (perhaps too much stimulus)
There are a number of ways to “thin” our stimulus, but sometimes we simply need to go on a stimulus fast to wipe the slate clean and cleanse our “media palette.” I would recommend doing this at least a few times a year. Try eliminating all non-work-essential media, (no TV, iPod, e-mail, etc.), for a season and see if it doesn’t improve your awareness, intuition and sense of appreciation for the world.
It takes intentionality to engage with creative projects on our own time - they don’t just make themselves. In this episode, we talk about some disciplines that can help us creatively engage and get moving on our “pet” projects.
October 17th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Too much stimulus? yes yes and yes– We’re buried most of the time if we are plugged in to the knowledge worker economy. I’ve written a bit about that lately because I deal with it all the time.
I’ve had to give up things I really did enjoy in order to do a better job of handling the real needs. Someone said we are “time deprived” but I think it’s a matter of the pipe carries too much information for anyone to sort out.
I would add two thoughts to help with the problem; 1) Look at David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” book and material available on the internet; [I know that's more stimulus] his methods will help sort out the wheat from the chaf. 2)A.W. Tozer who lived before this media flood put it this way; read less, but more of those things that really feed you. [I think that's pretty close].
There needs to be some reflection in all of this because a fast is more than just going without food.