No News—unless it pertains to a goal; Infomagical day 3

Creative_smallWell, looks like I won’t be reading The Verge today.

Infomagical challenge 3 is all about intentional information consumption; time to whole-hog preempt the temptation to mindlessly click from tidbit to tidbit of news. In addition to pushing me to further restrict my information diettoday’s mini-episode of Note To Self offers a fascinating glimpse at 13th-century strategies for coping with information overload. Nice to find out that some of our information wrangling methods are tried-and-truer than I had thought.

Here’s a bit of news that I will be checking out as these items do pertain to my goal of being focused on creativity:

New Applications For The Age-Old Zen Garden? Infomagical Gets Into Gear Today

image-56a116a8cc273-defaultTime for some serious monotasking.

Today’s Note To Self podcast mini-episode starts a week-long social social science experiment by instructing participants to live life at the speed of one thing at a time—to be monochronic if we must get technical about this. With this charge to be single-minded in today’s activities, it’s time to do whatever it takes to keep focused on what’s at hand—time to use an email auto-reply, turn on do not disturb mode, take off the smartwatch, work in wifi-free zones, maybe even set up a mini Zen rock garden. Should make for some good opportunities to do some deep work.

Oh, dang: Invisibilia episode 5

bird_diagram_final_wide-f57ad53cb648cd6a830907907811e189be432798-s1400-c85Wow. From kittens & puppies to categories to gender to culture to death. Invisibilia is once again quite a journey, interweaving personal perspectives with scientific research through compelling storytelling. This show still totally tops my charts and lists.

But my heart breaks just a little bit when I hear Lulu or Alix upspeak unnecessarily (Alix never seemed to do that in her news reporting!). Fortunately, there isn’t much of that in this episode.

Dang, I love you, NPR. TED Radio Hour, Invisibilia, Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Radio Lab… you’re just nailing it.

Brené Brown, Karen Russell, David Linden: best podcasts episodes of my weekend

If you like an informative, insightful podcast episode every now and then, try the three below; they each enthralled me this snowy weekend. (In case you’re wondering why Invisibilia isn’t mentioned, I’m saving the latest episode for an evening of sheer exhaustion.)

Fingertips To Hair Follicles: Why ‘Touch’ Triggers Pleasure And PainFresh Air discusses various facets of the sense of touch with neuroscience researcher David Linden.

The Courage to Be Vulnerable—shame & vulnerability researcher expert guru Brené Brown converses thought-provokingly with On Being‘s Krista Tippet.  

Karen Russell On Balancing Writing, Technology, and Boredom—host of his eponymous show Leonard Lopate and author Karen Russell talk about technology, writing and boredom.