I’ve had some positive feedback from people about the experiments listed on this site–mostly from likeminded people who want to exert some control over electronic distractions.

The experiments are actually a means to an end, and that’s where the principles come in. The purpose of this site is to explore the impact of slowing down and managing effectively–both yourself and others. The experiments and possibly others should give you the time to do that.

Slow Management takes time and effort. It takes focus and engagement. You can’t do that if you are buzzing around answering the lastest flashing light or beep. So the first and most critical step is to create the space. Some good resources are:

• Bit Literacy by Mark Hurst: A good way to deal with the digital weight before it overwhelms you.
• Getting to inbox zero: It can be a bit of a false god, but the practices are worthwhile whether or not you keep a clean slate.
• The 22 Minute Meeting: Meetings have become a universal time suck. Or more correctly, badly run meetings are the suck.

I’m going to flesh out the principles more in the coming weeks. Just wanted to lay out the relationship between the two main elements of this site.

**Updated with Edits thanks to @digitalacolyte**

• Act with the expectation of positive intent
• Credit is karma–don’t try to control it, but be sure to give it to those who deserve it
• Talk less and do more–don’t over-explain to be smart
• Cut down on sources of stimulation
• Fatigue is the enemy so be fit enough to fight it
• Develop outside interests and provocations
• Be engaged and engage others
• Be open and consistent in communication–to provide context for the future

Thoughts? Either comment or send to jason[at]slow-management[dot]org

Obviously, it is amazing what you can do when you focus on work and not the dizzing dance of distractions flying about like incontinent dung beetles. I won’t rant and rave about the impact of rampant multitasking–this article should do the trick.

Lean ways of working are understandably getting a lot of play. When you look at the principles, they are just good management.

• Make sure people are focused on value-adding activities;
• share learning and best practices;
• make the right decisions and the right time;
• engage and empower the team;
• act with integrity; and
• stitch it all together.

• Daily email limitation–which involves not sending any email before 4pm; and
• Blackberry limitation–which involves not putting a SIM into my work Blackberry before noon

I’m making an adjustment to the Daily email. Colleagues correctly complained that the 4pm email barrage when I finally synched my mail was just delayed dumping. It’s a good point. The idea is not to just hold off on sending email but actually cut back on email and engage in other ways.

Therefore, I’m updating the Daily email limitation to only be able to send 20 emails (rather than the usual 50 or so) at the now 3:30pm sync. We’ll see how that works.

On the Blackberry limitation, I’m going to stop the experiment. The lack of access to a mobile up-to-date calendar increased the stress. Also the ability to at least scan emails was just increasing the daily email dump. I tried a few workarounds but… well… the terms “Malware” and “asset” were involved. I’m still going to make more use of a secondary phone.

And I am sure this is information that you couldn’t live without…