What's new, pussycat?

That 1965 Tom Jones hit song resonates today because of all the questions I get about the impact on our productivity from the last few decades of digital developments (or should I say onslaughts?).

Well, yes, there’s plenty new. Three things in particular:

1. Speed of input and response.

2. Volume of potentially relevant content.

3. Frequency of context changes.

Individually these dynamics are nothing really new. Combined, though, it’s a new paradigm.

Obviously input today is instantaneous. But so was talking on the telephone for the last century. Even all the way back to the telegraph or even smoke signals or drum beats, the word can get out immediately.

Response is another story. Knowing your letter would take weeks to arrive on horseback as a response to a friend’s missive, you’d think much more carefully about what to say and how to say it. Now, there are many expectations for immediate replies to texts and emails. Great for moving the needle right away on some things, but hardly rich thinking space allowed before you respond.

There’s a new demon afoot called Channel Creep. In the early 1980s email was a nice addition to our physical mail (either of which could of course mount up quickly). But now—how many sources of input are you getting that might have interest or importance for you and that you need to put your attention on?

In previous times piles of correspondence to answer or papers and documents to research for an article to write might have been common for a few people. But now? Most everyone connected in some way to their busy world is burdened (or maybe blessed) with the tsunami of possibly important stuff.

You may be getting an email or a text as you read this which will force a reassessment of what you should do tonight, or this week, or this year. Your parents probably didn’t have to rethink and recalibrate their career or lifestyle more than a few times, if ever. But very few of you are now doing what you thought you’d be doing when you were 15. And in two years, who knows?

That’s probably good news, and you’ve adjusted your life accordingly. But change, even for the better, is one of the main sources of stress. We’ve never had as many options of what to do and not do in our lives and work—ever. And those options are ever-evolving with what’s going on in the world. Nothing is new except how frequently it is.

None of these things are slowing down. And their combination adds juice to each of them. But the one thing that hasn’t changed is us. We can still only think about one thing at a time. We still can’t hold a few open loops in our heads before something goes missing. We still can’t choose well between things we haven’t looked at. Having more channels didn’t change any of that, it just fills everything up faster.

So it comes down to what it always came down to: being as clear as we can be about what we want, where we want to go, and the tools and practices that will most facilitate that.

None of this is new advice. It’s the same thing I was saying about the same problem thirty years ago, when the problem was a tenth of the size. A method that needed updating every time the tools changed wouldn’t have been much of a method. Speed, volume and change are here to stay, and each growing as you read this.

Tread lightly…