A Minute to Think summary

Where does our impulse for busyness come from? Part of the answer can be found in the most unlikely of places: the American TV show Candid Camera. Its creators covertly film ordinary Americans reacting to staged situations. In one skit, a group of actors get onto an escalator alongside an unsuspecting member of the public. Once on the escalator, the actors turned around and faced the wrong way. Incredibly, the other person did too. 

Perhaps you want to leave the office on time and get back to your family or friends. But then you see all your teammates settling into their chairs for an evening of work. Surely you can’t be the only person that’s not there! Or perhaps you know that your coworkers are always “on” and ready to respond to an email the second it arrives. Can you really leave your messages sitting unopened in that inbox? 

We have established that busyness harms productivity. But why exactly does this happen? Well, scientists have now discovered the answer: it all has to do with how different parts of your brain work together. 

Consider that hectic to-do list that’s pinned to your workstation. What this list represents is a number of difficult, complex tasks. To complete these tasks, you’ll need to engage an area of your brain called the frontal lobe, which carries out your most advanced thinking. 

What drives your behavior in the workplace? For most of us, there are two key motivators: we want to achieve excellence and seek out information. At a basic level, these drives are useful. But the problem is, in the modern workplace, they’ve gone into overdrive. 

The key message here is: Our basic drives are stealing our valuable free time. 

Most of us spend our working lives immersed in digital communication. We used to have one-on-one meetings; now we communicate mostly via email or, more recently, Zoom. But what is this switch doing for our breathing space? Sadly, not a lot of good. Evidence suggests that new technologies are sucking up our attention – making our relationships, and our productivity, suffer. 

Just consider the impact of smartphones on our relationships. Studies have shown that simply leaving your smartphone on the table while talking to someone makes that person like you less. 

Language is among the most powerful tools at our disposal. We use language to express our dreams and define our goals. When we have a disagreement, the way we use language can either heal the rift or deepen the divide. A simple but often forgotten truth is that we can all improve our communication skills by simply thinking before we speak. 

Here’s one of the most powerful ways to put this truth into practice: before you say something, pause and think about how you’re going to say it. In the workplace, especially, that entails considering the right medium of communication to use. 

What do meetings mean to you? Many of us used to see them as time thieves that took over our schedules and stopped us from doing real work. 

This mindset changed with COVID-19. Faced with the prospect of indefinite separation from our coworkers, we’ve started to crave the connection that face-to-face meetings bring. We miss the intimacy that comes from sharing our thoughts and ideas around a table.