I’ve been reading Rocketmatter’s “Legal Productivity” blog for weeks now, just nodding and mentally exclaiming “eureka!” after each post. It’s seemingly under the radar, but you need to take a look if you’re anywhere remotely in the six degrees of law, journalism, digital platforms, social media, global communications, the English language, handwriting, hieroglyphics, cavemen, the invention of fire, speaking, oxygen, being a human…

Today’s panel was on “responsible connectivity”, or rather, “knowing when to unplug, and how to do it effectively”. I’ve been grappling with this for some time - when our days are filled with talking, jabbering, and being on the cutting edge, how do we make the leap to less talkative waters? Sometimes I whisper to my Mac at the end of the day, “I wish I knew how to quit you”. @EmilyPicc has seen this firsthand. 

Here are some takeaways:

- Neuroplasticity is one of the most important terms you can learn from the field of neuroscience. In sum, what you do ‘molds’ your brain by changing the physical shape of neurons, dendrites, and the journey of all those lovely little electric jolts that travel between them. For mice, moving about in a fixed environment like a maze redesigns the functions of the brain (where do you find the cheese? where are the dead ends?), in order to survive. In modernspeak, this is your brain on the web. Further, repetition has a significant impact on this clay-brain effect. The Internet is our maze, and the irony is that it never has a dead end. Your brain has certainly evolved from the brain it once was in 1991. We’re going to have to deal with it.

- Which means there are more and more interruptions at a constant rate. It’s not unlikely for some to check their email, Facebook, or Twitter, thirty or forty times per hour. And get stuck in a technology loop like Fred, seen above. Enter a university lecture hall and sit in the back row. You’ll see.

- A 2009 Stanford study found that multitaskers are “suckers for irrelevancy”. Everything distracts them! Not only did they lose time by transitioning, but they’re distracted by things that aren’t important, and having to switch those mental slides back and forth, resetting the circuitry - and thus the neurons within - is a big time waster. (“So, uh. What were we talking about?”) 

-  Work on your weedy inbox for a few moments before breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner. Set a timer for email and only email. And then be done. See also: leave work at work. 

- As @AlexPriest and @JosephRooks have told me, the ”zero inbox” method of archiving, deleting, and starring is one way to mentally and physically compartmentalize. Gmail is especially privy to this method, but there are a host of other email services out there that can do the same thing for you. 

- Twitter and Facebook are the distractions we love to hate and hate to love, no? Know how much time you want to allocate to those jobs, and when to knock it off. For instance, I use the RockMelt browser. It’s chaotic. Very ADD. Look at it. I mean…seriously, that’s insane. That little bell up there? Quiet function.

- “The guys who formed our Constitution in some way — Locke, Hobbes, Jefferson — had neural pathways designed for deep concentration.”

- Reading books forces you to concentrate, and exercises these neurological pathways. Feeling anxiety, an inability to focus, or just general neurosis can be aided by simply reading. (Revolutionary! Books! I love books.) Exercising a part of the brain that will counterbalance the hunter-gatherer function is key. Even reading at night, if only ten pages at a pop, will rewire your grey matter for the better.

- “An internet addict is like an alcoholic running a distillery.”

-  For more: www.responsiblyconnected.com