Behold the Stars

How many self-help, life-hack websites do you read each day? Each week? Now how many of the great ideas have you actually put into practice? If you read three or four life hack and self-help web sites each day, are you getting better, or are you just consuming the information like potato chips, bite after bite, no longer enjoying the taste, but eating nonetheless?

It’s easy to become so overwhelmed by the amount of good advice out there that you pay attention to none of it. Many of us are caught by the magic promise of the Internet, by its endless pathways of information, each path filled with stimulation and magic and fresh, new ideas. But by compulsively following these paths, we become inured to the impact of each new piece of information so that, rather than absorbing the idea, we let it bounce off us, an in-one-ear-and-out-the-other sort of thing. It’s as if we thought we could learn another language simply by reading a long list the words in that language.

It reminds me of what they taught us in computer classes about the difference between data and information: data is a mountain of facts and figures; information is that data filtered and organized into meaningful chunks. Each post on the life-hack web sites is an attempt to create information from the mass of available data. By reading multiple life-hack sites, we are, in essence, turning that information back into data. What do we get from that?

Hope, I guess. Sites like these represent hope and the possibility of a perfect life. But they also represent a need you have to be more than you are. These sites are useful, but they also can make you feel insecure. Often we assume that there are others out there — the author of the post, perhaps — who are so insanely productive that they approach perfection. Maybe we can absorb all these hacks and become perfect ourselves…

I don’t think so.
Yes, we can improve. Yes, we can be more productive. We do that with focus, by narrowing our concentration and working more intensely with that. Here’s what I want you — and me — to do this week: stop looking at all the tips and ideas that are out there. Pick one or two to implement into your life and give them your all. Do not look at more ideas. Take the time you save reading to work on the things that drove you to those sites in the first place. You’ll probably be more effective (and more relaxed).

Make a great day.
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