Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

29 Jul 2008

Just Seven Things

: Dice by Andrew Beierle

I have Google Alerts set-up for a number of different key words or phrases across the web. I track references to the company I work for, our competitors, our industry etc. I also track references to my consultancy (Scarlet Monday) and to Just Seven Things.

Now the company, Madgex, has very few other references made to it. It’s a construct of the initials of the founding shareholders and they slapped an ‘x’ on the end.

Scarlet Monday has more references as you would expect with the nouns Scarlet and Monday. But not that many.

The results for Just Seven Things however are really interesting. There’s a reason for me using this title for my blog. At the heart of my passion is a fascination for the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious. As in you can see in the ‘about’ this blog, ‘The Magical Number Seven’ is the hook that I hang my fascination from.

The Balance between Focus and Multi-tasking

Out of Focus by Billy Alexander

I commented yesterday on the challenging tension between multi-tasking and focus on GTD Times. I referenced how I use Mark Forster’s Do It Tomorrow methodology (see blogroll) to enable as much focus as possible during day to day working.

What’s been nagging at me has been catalysed by my reading of Guy Claxton’s Hare Brain Tortoise Mind.

In the book Guy argues that our ‘intelligent unconscious’ is a sophisticated nervous system that gets to know the world by the idiosyncrasies of our own experience: ‘a brain is plastic: it transmutes ignorance into competence….. categories and concepts are distilled from particular encounters so that, by a process of spontaneous analogy, ‘what I do next’ can be informed by records of ‘what happened before”.

It ‘registers its patterns and develops and coordinates skillful responses’

Mind Control and the Completeness Obsession II

Network Neurons 2 by Gerard79

I wrote a few days ago about failing to trust my ability to be ‘other-than-consciously’ complete on issues. I asked whether I am consciously intervening, thinking that this is a ‘better’ position.

Well, I’m pleased to say that I’m not sat alone in a corner with my nagging voice. I’ve just been continuing to read Guy Claxton’s Hare Brain Tortoise Mind. Most excellent as always (I started with his book on Buddhism about fourteen years ago)

Two things married together while I was vacuuming earlier (a classic case of ‘loafing’ for creativity whilst also earning familial brownie-points….)

Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better