Slow down, you move too fast

Time management used to be a skill, now it's a survival technique, according to Dion Chang of trends analysis company Flux Trends.

He was speaking at the relaunch of urban lifestyle marketing specialist TimeSquare in Johannesburg last Thursday.

This fast-paced, out of control world may be why the biggest growth industry is life coaching, and time is the new currency, says Chang.

"We now have the two second radio spot - what worries me somewhat is we don't even have time to listen to a 15-second radio advert," he says.

This has resulted in us no longer connecting socially. "Instead, we feel a slight gleeful relief when an appointment is cancelled," he says, adding that this leads to virtual friendships and "mezzanine levels of communication".

We yearn to be alone, we cocoon and have domestic retreats. This explains why the biggest lifestyle spend is on bathrooms - it's our last place of refuge. "It's the only place you can be alone and be quiet. That's really scary," Chang says.

Technology was meant to make our lives easier, but not so. So we have Blackberries, which are so addictive that have become known as Crackberries, and we now have the Blackberry prayer position (picture a man hunched over his Blackberry, typing madly).

Research has shown that people now fear their emails, says Chang. And technology is making us stupid and lazy. We no longer remember telephone numbers, we jump on the internet to do research which may not be the best way to get information, but is the easiest.

Chang quotes Elton John, who asked: Can you imagine how creative we'd be if we shut the internet down for one to two weeks?

"It's a slow and steady lobotomy that we're willingly subject to," says Chang.

And we suffer from the time warp - we think everything is urgent. For example, says Chang, we risk life and limb to answer the cellphone when driving, even though we have voicemail. Or we set up an appointment and it takes 20 emails, instead of just picking up the phone, which would take 40-seconds.

At one stage everyone wanted to multi-skill, but now research has have found it delays your brain.

But then people argue that they perform best under pressure. Well so do battery chickens, says Chang, adding: "Don't confuse thinking on your feet with running on a treadmill. Sooner or later you reach breaking point. You start hating what you do, you can't cope."

The solution

Chang spoke of a company which urged its employees to cut out instant messaging and multitasking. They were told to do business by telephone. As a result, their productivity went up and they worked fewer hours.

Chang advocates the concept of slow space, taking the day off, have a good mental health day. Spend time daydreaming. As he says, you get your best ideas when you're sitting in the bath or on the beach. You can't do it while sitting in front of the TV with your laptop. Do small things like visiting an art gallery in your lunch hour. Don't eat lunch out of a polystyrene container at your desk, meditate

Slowing down is not a luxury but a necessity. You can't think out of the box, when you're trapped in the damn box, says Chang. Slow thought promotes independent thought. An overloaded brain accepts information without questioning it.

His final advice: If you want productive and happy lives, step away from the machines. Rather learn to manage the machines.

*For more on the relaunch of Timesquare, click here