Technology and Time Management

In this article in The Atlantic, James Fallows is optimistic about the ways we’ll be able to master technology to guide our lives in the years ahead. “We’ve been through the worst,” he proclaims. “The next stage in information technology will put people back in control, or closer to it.” Here are the specifics:

• Escaping the e-mail nightmare – For most people, e-mail is still overwhelming. Senders get to generate endless tasks for us – read this, do that, schedule a meeting, pay a bill – at no cost to themselves. But market mechanisms will shift the cost back to the sender, says Fallows, and rapidly improving filters will screen out most of the worthless stuff as we “teach” them who we want to hear from and who we don’t.

• Anticipatory intelligence – Smartphones can now change time zones as we travel from one to another, and cars let us know when they’re low on gas or a tire needs to be pumped up. Fallows says computers will get better and better at scoping out our needs and letting us know without prompting.

• Better ways of inputting and outputting information – Siri’s amusing errors notwithstanding [ask her for the meaning of life], voice-recognition software has improved by leaps and bounds, and will soon be the most efficient way to get information into devices. Our computers and smartphones will also get better at “talking” to us – perhaps whispering prompts in our ear.

• From macro to micro – Software is getting more adept at showing us the big picture of our schedules, projects, and annual goals – then allowing us to zoom in on the details. “You don’t want a constant litany of the thousands of things you want to get done,” says Mark Bernstein, the creator of Tinderbox, “but you need to be able to look over the whole list from time to time. Finding ways to make your information visible without letting it get underfoot is the big challenge.” 

“How You’ll Get Organized” by James Fallows in The Atlantic, July/August 2014 (Vol. 314, #1, p. 30-32), http://theatln.tc/1pCXECh; see Marshall Memo 41 for an earlier article by James Fallows on time management and Memo 458 for a Fallows interview with David Allen.

 From the Marshall Memo #542