So you haven’t learned a new lockdown skill?
A few weeks ago, you were gung ho. You had a plan to maximise the time on lockdown. You were not going to waste it. You were going to learn how to bake, or speak a new language, or play a musical instrument, or something. This was going to be the most productive time in your life. Outside of work, this was the time to do all the things that you had procrastinated on. Now, close to two months in, the paints are still in the box, the online course people keep sending you daily reminders to come back for lessons, you haven't progressed beyond 'hello, how are you?' in Mandarin and, since the...
Distraction, the ultimate productivity killer
Have you ever sat down with the intention of getting something done only to find, when you look back at the end of the work day, that you didn't anything productive? I remember working for a magazine and, the day I started contemplating quitting was when I realised that, in one day, the most productive I had been was having sent three emails. Why? Distraction. Every time I sat down to work on an article, the phone rang or an email came in or my cellphone beeped or something walked into my office. That was one of my lowest points. I have spent the last 6 years trying to deal with distraction....
How to manage uncertainty with children
As parents, we have all had that moment when our child repeats something we said in the privacy of our homes in front of the person we said it about. Hopefully, when this happened, it didn’t create too awkward a situation. The simple reality is that our children learn about the world and life through our deeds and our words, though rarely the words we speak to them directly. Our values become their values. Our principles become their principles. This means that racism and sexism and all the other negative -isms are learned from us. No child is born automatically racist. And, when you see a...
Strategic business shutdown
The Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns are wreaking havoc on the world's economies. Watching the struggles that big business is having globally shows how fragile everything is. But, it pales in relation to the impact on small businesses, freelancers, artists, etc. Work life can be challenging enough with those us within those sectors. Both my wife and I work for ourselves and I grew up in an entrepreneurial household where, belts had to be tightened so regularly, it became the norm. To go from uncertainty with opportunity to complete uncertainty has been daunting, with clients shutting...
How successful are you? Really?
The Business Dictionary defines 'success' as follows: Achievement of an action within a specified period of time or within a specified parameter. Success can also mean completing an objective or reaching a goal. Success can be expanded to encompass an entire project or be restricted to a single component of a project or task. It can be achieved within the workplace, or in an individual's personal life. For example, if an individual's personal goal is to be accepted in a new career, success would occur after the individual has been officially accepted into his or her new place of employment....
South African media faltering, random thoughts
The music industry was ground zero when it came to digital disruption but, over the last decade, has found a way to revive itself. Major labels have stakes in streaming services, like Spotify and, for a while, the 360-deal was all the rage. For independent labels, streaming, merchandising, publishing and licensing and performance ticket sales have been some of the main revenue streams. The media industry, in my opinion, was the next sector to find itself at serious crossroads. Internationally, there was the expansion into events, apps, websites and the like, in an attempt to diversify...
Conversations with your younger self
A common question in interviews is ‘what you would tell your 18, 20, 30, x year-old self?’ As we navigate the years, the hope is that we gain wisdom, learn things, evolve and progress from who we were to who we will become. With hindsight, it is easier to look back on the things we did, said and thought, and see a different way. On his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, Ferris often asks this question. I have been re-reading his book Tools of Titans which is a summary of interviews with over a hundred people. I was struck by the variety of answers, for those that were shared in the book. When...
In Range, David Epstein makes a case for generalists
Malcolm Gladwell's '10,000 hour rule' as detailed in his 2008 book Outliers was, when it came out, a concept that many grasped onto in making sense of work and the world. The idea that putting in 10,000 hours brings us to mastery in our chosen field is nice, tidy and easy to buy into. In 2009, he was on Reddit answering questions and wrote: There is a lot of confusion about the 10,000 rule that I talk about in Outliers. It doesn't apply to sports. And practice isn't a SUFFICIENT condition for success. I could play chess for 100 years and I'll never be a grandmaster. The point is simply that...
The Twitter Abyss
Keeping one's mind right in a world that feels like it is struggling to get a grip on reality often seems damn near impossible. And that is under supposedly normal conditions. Today, it feels even harder, especially on Twitter. I have a love-hate relationship with the platform that started in 2008. Or rather with how we interact with each other on the platform. In my first couple of years, I was on constantly to the point where it was creating rifts in my home. I was fascinated by how we would find out about events as they took place because people were tweeting from the ground. The night...
Questlove in times of Covid-19
With all the content that is online - on the hour, every hour - I have been struggling to keep up, especially on Instagram. Since D-Nice launched his Homeschool at Club Quarantine on March 21st, there has been explosion of musical experiences online. With the time differences between the south of Africa and the US, I have missed most of these. I just don’t have the energy that some friends have to sit up until the early hours of the morning… which also means I missed the Teddy Riley versus Babyface fiasco. I just caught the memes. After the success of D-Nice's IG livestream party - which...
Finding your rhythm working from home
There are those who have to brave traffic to go to work who have looked upon those who work from home with some envy. The idea of working from home, like most things, is a lot prettier, imagined, than it is in reality. Being able to sit in the ‘office’ in your pyjamas without the pressures of shower, get dressed and leave the house with a schedule can seem easier than it is. Working from home can be fulfilling but many are discovering that the grass is not always more comfortable on the other side. Writing on productivity I have been working from home off and on for years. It has taken as...
Attention, that’s what it’s all about
"Attention is a resource—a person has only so much of it."Matthew Crawford Social media, over the last decade, has put 'attention' at the heart of everything we do. This is especially the case when you consider the sheer vastness of the digital noise that we create every day, including posts like this. Our value is often seen to be determined by numbers - followers, likes, comments, fans, pageviews, hits, etc. The birth and proliferation of the 'influencer' is a result of this. Attention has become a commodity In an interview with the legendary US radio host Angie Martinez, rapper J Cole...
Doing business with purpose
The definition of 'purpose' that has always resonated with me is " the reason for which anything is done, created, or exists." (Free Dictionary). In 2018, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel at the Holmes Report's (now PRovoke) In2Summit Africa. The topic of discussion was “Finding Post-Truth Purpose: Why Addressing Societal Needs Is More Important Than Ever" and we explored the concept of Purpose-Driven Communications. My view then - and now - is that every organisation needs to have a purpose, to begin with. If you consider some of the standard objectives that businesses have,...
How are you planning for an uncertain future?
"The question for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers." Elrich Fromm Uncertainty should force us to shift away from business as usual. Uncertainty should force us to be creative with how we approach what has been our status quo. While, when submerged in the turmoil, it can be difficult to look beyond and plan for an unknown future, we have to try. Watching the way many have embraced the digital media over the last two weeks has been awesome. People have been stretching themselves, finding authentic ways to share...
What it means to be a conscious parent
Becoming a father had - and continues to have - a profound effect on my life. I always knew I wanted to be a father yet, like everyone else, I can't say I was ready for it when it happened. Becoming a parent is one of those things that you can never really be prepared for; you have to experience it to get it. One of my favourite quotes about becoming a parent is from Elizabeth Stone, “Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ” How do you prepare for that? Today, I had the opportunity to participate...
Being more than your job
The question that gets asked more at social events than any other is probably "So what do you do?" Don't quote me on this though, I have no empirical evidence that suggests it is so. It just feels that way to me. The minute you give an answer to this, the asker immediately decides on the kind of person you are off the basis of whatever stereotypes or thoughts they have of people in the same profession. Other than a stint as a magazine editor, when I had a clear answer to this question, I have been generally been left at a loss for words when asked. Amongst the different jobs I have had,...