1. Courtesy and etiquette aren’t mentioned, but I think are more at the root of Shannon’s post. For example, when talking to someone whose cell phone rings, the instinct is to stop talking to me, answer the cell phone, and complete that conversation. I liken this behavior pattern to one where two people are talking and a third walks up, stands in front of me, turns their back on me, and proceeds to have a conversation with the person I was just speaking to. I think most of us would call that “rude” or worse.

All cell phones of any value have two very useful features which I use to help me be courteuous - vibrate mode and voice mail. When in a conversation with someone, and my phone vibrates, I do nothing to acknowlege it other than hit the button that makes it stop. I continue the conversation. I like to think the gesture to turn off the vibrate, acknowleges the value of the person I’m speaking to. And the physcial gesture visably enforces this. I also do not answer my desk phone when someone is talking to me. It too has voice mail. (I have noticed that this often makes the person I’m talking to uncomfortable, and when I see this, I tell them “I’ve got voice mail, and this conversation is more important”. It would be nice if desk phones had a button to stop the ringing like cell phones have
2. Solitude and silence are closely related. Sleep and its essential value in maintaining sanity are well documented. I think “sleep” is the ultimate solitude. In addition to the solitude of sleep, planned solitude every day is important for much the same reason. I have at least 3 periods of planned solitude each day. Two of them are riding my motorcycle too and from work (no one is talking to me, and there is no radio on my bike). The third is a planned hour at work early in the morning (I go in an hour earlier than most for this reason) where I take time to reflect on yesterday, and plan for today. This third time of solitude is not the same as “not thinking”, but is “single threaded” time without any external multi-tasking communications going on. I find it healthly, empowering, can clarifying also.

3. Lying in bed before sleeping or, for 20 mins before getting up, can provide much the same opportunity to “sort things out” from the apparent chaos and random sense of it all that accompanies living life with many rapid changes in your attention.

4. Music can be helpful in getting your thoughts to slow down, establishing a “beat” for your thoughts to flow with, (but that depends on what you select for music :-). For some, music is just enough “distraction” that the effort to keep it in the background creates the necessary focus to concentrate your thinking. For others, its the excuse not to think, deeply analyze what is going on, look for patterns, ask “why” enough times about events, etc. In other words, its the tool of choice to detach the higher brain functions from the surroundings.

4. Folks often confuse activity with effectiveness. In fact, its a bit of an American prejudice to equate rushing around with effectiveness. I believe it is important to be proactively be “inactive” in order to improve effectiveness. In physics, energy can be organized (effective), in which case it does work (something useful), or disorganized, in which case it becomes heat (waste). The same of amount of energy is used in either case.

Much of what goes on today in work environments strikes me as more of the latter than the former, and Email, crackberry, cell phones and endless meetings seem to contribute to too much heat and not enough useful work.

5. There are people who are afraid of the sound of their own thinking. They are afraid of absolute quiet, places where no one else is around (for miles), and can sit alone in an open space for an hour and day dream. I am not one of them, so I don’t understand what it is that makes them aprehensive. But I do wonder if they are the majority.