Dot Calm

For millions of people, technology is making their lives harder, not easier. They're bombarded with so much information they can barely read it, let alone process it. They're tied to the office-through email, cell phones, pagers, voice mail and fax machines-24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their sense of balance is under assault from the relentless onslaught of data and the feeling that they must be constantly "connected."
For everyone who yearns to simplify life, slow down, and get centered, all without compromising their career, Dot Calm offers more than hope-it offers answers. Based on the authors' in-depth interviews and survey results, Dot Calm outlines a wide variety of proven tactics that real people in all walks of life are using to cope with the ubiquitous problems of information, access, and work overload. This book provides an unprecedented chance to leverage the success strategies of people who have managed to sever the "electronic tether" that kept them constantly bound to their jobs.
Dinnocenzo and Swegan show that you don't have to sacrifice productivity or efficiency to have a sane, balanced life. On the contrary-technology can so overwhelm people with data that they have a hard time focusing on those activities that truly matter. Unplugging will actually make you more effective.Foreword
Special Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments

Part One—Problem/Opportunity
1. Take Heed of Net Speed!
Over-connected, over-worked, over-informed and overwhelmed
2. Launch the Search Engine Within
Personal diagnosis and insights
3. How Organizations Help and Hinder
The problems—and the potential—that lurk in organizations

Part Two—Solutions
4. The Connection Conundrum
Choosing how much or how little to be connected and accessible
5. Unplug to Reenergize
Disconnecting and creating moments of serenity
6. Techno-Triage
Filtering for critical information
7. Creating Community
Connecting with others—the lost art of human contact

Part Three—Action
8. Your Digital Divide
Exploring possibilities, making personal choices and implementing solutions
9. Reminders—For Those Who Don’t Own a Retrospectoscope
The power of perspective combined with a strong sense of priorities

Special Afterword
Appendix
Related Reading
Contributors
Index
About the Authors
More InformationDebra Dinnocenzo and Rick Swegan have lived the issues described in Dot Calm: The Search for Sanity in a Wired World, throughout their marriage and partnership, long before they decided to write this book. Debra is president of ALLearnatives®, a learning and development
firm that consults with organizations to help implement alternative work strategies and remote work initiatives. Debra has more than twenty years experience in marketing, sales and product management. She has worked in executive positions for Development Dimensions International (DDI), Ridge Associates and Learning International, a division of Times Mirror. A graduate of Central Michigan University, Debra holds an M.A. and B.S. in business. In addition to publishing numerous articles, she is also the author of 101 Tips for Telecommuters (Berrett- Koehler, 1999). In her spare time, Debra enjoys walking in the woods near her home, writing poetry, and spending time with her daughter Jennimarie.
Rick Swegan currently serves as global account manager for Development Dimensions International (DDI), where he manages the firm’s relationship with its largest global client. He is DDI’s career sales revenue leader and has been awarded top sales honors for nine consecutive years. Prior to his tenure at DDI, Rick was vice president of human resources for a fast food chain and held administrative positions at several colleges and universities. He received his B.A. from The College of Wooster and an M.Ed. from Ohio University. Rick is a voracious reader and collector of books—he still has all the books he ever owned and especially enjoys collecting juvenile books. In addition to spending time with his daughters, he enjoys exploring his family history (which he’s traced back ten generations) and serves as a partner in ALLearnatives®.Part One
Problem/Opportunity
1
It begins almost imperceptibly. A small voice within quietly whispers. Its persistence becomes somewhat familiar—a soothing sound that both nudges and nurtures. Words are not formed, though the feeling becomes clearer. And you slowly begin to understand. It is like a radio signal that is garbled by static, though the station is unquestionably transmitting. And as you travel forth, the static dissipates, the sounds emerge into words, and the small voice within is heard clearly:


Something Is Not Right!


This is the often slow and circuitous route by which you come to realize that your life is out of balance and that any semblance of control is only a distant memory, having long since been replaced by an overwhelming sense of O-V-E-R-L-O-A-D.

Throughout this book you will find sections set off by large quotation marks. These are direct quotes from respondents whose comments, provided via interview or survey, were especially relevant or poignant. We did not create any of these quotes. Each is an authentic—and sometimes instructive, provocative, or sad—statement from a real person. The authors are grateful to these contributors who offered such valuable insights, ideas, and wisdom.

This overload of information, communication, and the demands of work is beginning to take its toll. How often do you:2


• Feel inundated by the volume and pace of information that relentlessly streams your way each day?
• Yearn for the days when taking a vacation meant that the office didn’t travel with you?
• Let phone calls interrupt precious time with family and wonder where to draw the line on the intrusion into your life that technology enables?
• Feel that “the faster I go, the behinder I get” as you satisfy the demand to operate at net speed, while seeking the elusive work/life balance you so desperately desire?
• Wish you could simplify your life, slow your pace, feel more sane and balanced?
• Feel the desire to be connected—not to networks or databases or message systems or wireless access, but to something deeper, higher, greater… and to others?

“

Access to information is so fast now that I try to get done as much as I can as fast as I can. Therefore, I try to put more on my plate because I can get it done quicker, which leads to more stress and shorter deadlines. Add in e-mail and having to manage that—and it can cause havoc in your life.

”
“

I close the door to my office and leave it all behind. I focus on family. Work comes and goes, things come and go, but family is eternal. I am going to focus on the eternal things, because they are the important things. All this fuss we make about our livelihoods stops after we die. The family doesn’t.

”
WHAT TO DO? This is, of course, the operative question. While we can enumerate the virtues of technology and the myriad advantages we all enjoy as a result of nearly limitless access to information and communication resources, let’s face it—most of us are exhausted, stressed out, frenetic, and oftentimes unfocused. Further, regardless of the technology tools we currently use to stay informed, connected, and tethered to our work, expect them to be replaced by newer, faster, and more intrusive tools aimed at increased productivity or accessibility. Improved technological tools and resources will not inherently minimize related problems without a conscious effort to manage the ways you deploy that technology in your work and life.3
In the spirit of the simplicity everyone seems to crave, we have made every effort throughout this book to be efficient in the way information is provided and the ways you can access and apply it. Our hope is to transform the voice so that the calm, persistent message within you evolves to:


It Will Be All Right!


The wealth of ideas and solutions we have compiled were gathered through interviews, questionnaires, conversations, and e-mail messages involving people from a wide variety of jobs, industries, and career stages. From hundreds of sources, we have distilled the essence of their searching—the challenges, choices, and solutions for managing overload and achieving balance. So, as you read, bear in mind that we wrote according to the “rule of reality,” recounting the struggles and successes shared with us by so many contributors. The stories are real, the frustrations authentic, and the solutions rooted in real-world questions that beg for answers. Out of these myriad suggestions and solutions, we trust you will find a kindred voice that speaks to your needs and offers solutions for which you, too, have been searching.


Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
—Albert Einstein