When you are reading an article, listening to a podcast, or watching a video, think to yourself whether you actually care about the topic. If you don’t actually care, or you don’t need the information for any particular reason, stop engaging with the content.

I get sucked into consuming so much content that is fed to me through algorithms, or that I actually sign up to receive in newsletters. But 95% of what I get served is no more than moderately interesting, and usually not actually useful or relevant. It’s just “more content”. It’s like being at a restaurant and being served more and more food. It may all taste good, or good enough, but do I really need to consume all of it just because it is being served to me?

When I am trying to get things done, any little thing might derail me, especially if the task is tiring, complex, or not something I want to be doing. When something stops me from making progress, I need to get out of my own head for a minute and try to figure out if I am dealing with a blip or a glitch.

A blip is something that could potentially be ignored so that I can keep moving forward.

A glitch is something that is actually preventing me from moving forward.

Which one is it?

I think I tend to mix these up and let blips stop me when I should just be ignoring them.

*It has been so long since I have posted a picopause article, I forgot how to do it.

Yesterday, I suggested a way to make decisions easier when two (or more) people disagree. Today’s picopause is about making decisions easier for ourselves.

Looking for the “still calm voice” means taking some quiet time to give your mind a chance to wander. By making a practice of sitting — literally just sitting and doing nothing else — for several minutes at least once a day, you can start to develop the ability to hear the “still calm voice”, and that voice will give you the strength/direction/insight that you need.

In other words, people usually already know the right answer. They just need to be quiet for long enough to hear it.

*This might sound pretty “woo-woo”. Okay, it definitely sounds woo-woo. I’ll give you that. But it actually does work. If you are at all skeptical, I urge you not to fall into the easy trap of “contempt prior to investigation”.

You know how it can be really tiring when you have to spend more time/energy than necessary on relatively unimportant decisions like where to go for dinner tonight?

I am listening to all of the This American Life podcast episodes from when it started back in 1995 and I found a neat idea for helping to navigate “difficult” decisions like that. It’s from Episode 289: Go Ask Your Father from May 2005. The relevant part of the story starts at around 43:04.

The idea is that one person will give their opinion on what to do, and then the other person will give their opinion, and if there is a disagreement, they will both rate their opinion as to how strongly they feel about it. So, if one person says they want steak and the other says chicken, but the steak person says they are a five on the steak and the other says they are a seven on the chicken, they go with the chicken.

I really like this idea because it allows a different element to show up in the conversation. Rather than having two equal people with two equally valid opinions, you get two equal people with two equally valid opinions, but maybe one of them cares more about the outcome than the other, so why not let them be the decider this time?

I want to try this out sometime this week…

There are all kinds of memes about hating “people” and being introverted. I get it. I like my solitude too. But what do you really like about people?

*I like having conversations with people who think differently from me or who come from a different background or culture.

Like, REALLY rested.

Oscar Trimboli, an expert in listening in the workplace, proposes that there are four “villains of listening:

The Dramatic Listener
You love creating drama and exploring every element of the discussion. Rather than helping the speaker progress, you get stuck in the detail and dissecting the historical events and patterns that have led you to the discussion. You are so engrossed and engaged in the story that you become completely preoccupied in the theatre of the drama.

The Interrupting Listener
You’re so focused on finding a solution to the problem that you finish the speaker’s sentences for them. You feel they are moving too slowly in describing the issue, so you listen with the intent of solving, rather than their intent of being curious. You interrupt and interject, creating all kinds of confusion. You are busy solving problems the speaker hasn’t yet verbalised.

The Lost Listener
You’re in your own mind rather than in the conversation. You are so absorbed with your self-talk you don’t create enough space for the dialogue to land in your mind, you are so busy thinking about your last thought or your next thought that you can’t focus on the discussion. You are lost before you even turn up.

The Shrewd Listener
You’re too busy trying to solve the issue before listening to the explanation. You might be shrewd enough to wait patiently and not interrupt the speaker, but you are anticipating the future, trying to solve the problem before you’ve heard it or understood it all. You have forgotten to be present and to listen completely.

~ Oscar Trimboli

Which one are you? And does it depend on the context?

*I am definitely an “interrupter”. If you have spoken to me in real life, I have probably interrupted you, spoken over you, or finished your sentences. How annoying! I have gotten a bit better at this now that I am aware of it, but I still notice myself talking when I should be silent. If you catch me doing it, please feel free to call me out on it!

Why do I consistently find it so hard to ask for help?

It’s not all equally important. It can’t be.

Does that help you to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n a little bit? Does that help you be more present in the moment?

*I don’t think I ever joined up all my letters properly, even when I was first learning to write in cursive. I remember getting in trouble for that in elementary school.