Tag: Facebook

Communication Etiquette v Being Connected @CoffeaCoffeeMY


Good afternoon guys, It’s a Friday which means 2 things. The weekend is back and I’m at Coffea 🙂

I’ve been thinking and discussing quite a bit about Distractions after last weeks post and how it relates to communication and phones, how they can relate and react, and whether we always need to set the phone away in the presence of others.

Last Weeks Arkay’s Thoughts Distraction post was focused on focus, about the lack of focus and some of the factors involved and how to deal with it. It wasn’t specifically about communication issues regarding phones/gadgets etc and the development of Communication Etiquette.

So today, I’m going to follow up on Distractions and talk about Communication Etiquette v Being Connected.

Communication Etiuqette

This courtesy applies more to specific Active Human Interactions.
Having a one-on-one conversation with someone (ESPECIALLY)
1. Out for dinner with people
2. Participating in an Active Group session
3. When we are doing something with someone

Essentially, if we are participating in something, Actively Participating, we should give our full focus, attention and interest and not look at your phone every time is buzzes or beeps;

Exclusions
1. an important contact has messaged or called

Exclusions in a Group
1.We explicitly expressed that we are going to do our own thing
2. We are not presently Actively Engaged in conversation/activity
3. Once every 20/30 minutes or so.

The Lepak/Hanging Out Scenario

In this sort of situation it depends on the group, we know the people we hang out with, so we should know whether they are particular about this. Here are some of my views here.
1. It’s generally ok to use the phone/gadget, if we are just sitting around not doing anything; this is the Doing My Own Thing but with People Scenario
2. If a conversation is going on and we really have no interest or viewpoint, then go ahead and use the phone/gadget, this will also signal to the others that this doesn’t interest us as much and that we are possibly feeling left out
3. We don’t have to be Always On and participate in all conversation or activities, its ok to take a few minutes for ourselves and do our own thing.
4. Generally applies to when people get together for no particular purpose
a. University – We see each other almost everyday so there are times when we have nothing to say, but would rather just sit in the company of each other and do our own thing rather than go home
b. Home – with regards to people that often & regularly come over, we don’t have to engaged for every minute, if there are 4 people and 2 are playing FIFA, then either talk to the 3rd person (which would be the polite thing), but if the 3rd person is engrossed in watching the other 2 play FIFA, then by all means take out the phone/gadget and reply that message or plan tomorrow or read whatever it is you read on your phone so that you don’t waste that 10/15minutes. We’re not Actively Engaged.
c. Mamak/Lepak – in a situation where we meet friends/family outside, then we should really keep the phone away unless it’s important, we’ve come out to HangOut with each other, so do that, don’t go online and read Facebook or Twitter, we can do that at home. Don’t take Silence as the license to whip out the phone. Just don’t. Quiet doesn’t mean that it’s time to distract ourselves with other things. There was an INTENT to hangout with each other, so do that, whether it’s staring at each others faces or talking. The problem with taking out the phone at first ‘sight’ of Silence, is that it sigals to others that maybe we don’t want to talk, it shows disinterest, (remember there are exclusions), we know each other, so talk about something, or be in collective quiet, don’t Excuse yourself from the Present Moment by engaging with the phone/gadget.
Exclusions include:
1.Important Call/Message
2.Taking out phone to show people at the table something
3.Collectively engaging in an activity/game on the phone – you are still doing something together.

Games

Now with regards to games, they should not be played when with others unless related to The Lepak Scenario Point #4.1 & #4.2. Don’t play that game on the phone unless you have already Explicitly stated that you would like to do your own thing or if everyone is in the mood to do their own thing, which means that there are no Active Elements in play.

I personally don’t like to compete for the attention of the people I am Actively Hanging Out with.

Frequency

Now this point, similar Exclusions in a Group Point #3, is about how often we check our phones. If we really need to keep tabs on our phone notifications, especially in a one-on-one scenario, let’s attempt to keep it to every 20/30 minutes. The aim is to ensure minimal distraction from our gagdets whe in Active Scenarios.

Essentially

it comes down to Intent, Purpose and Participation. Not all gathering are Active Social gatherings, some are just reasons to be in the presence of others as we do our own things. Let’s be aware of the these factors the next time we are in the presence of others. Remember we don’t want to distract focus from the matter at hand but that doesn’t mean that we always have to keep you phone away. I think the above points will help us preserve the quality of our Active Human Interaction in this Modern day and balance the need to be Connected.

Straight From The Heart

20130426-135303.jpg

Related articles

 

The Productivity Serial Killer, Distraction @coffeacoffeemy


20130419-124810.jpg

Hello readers!

It’s been while, hope you guys are doing well. 😊

I’m back at Coffea Coffee today, didn’t realise how much I missed my Madonna Flat White until I took that first sip. If you haven’t tried this place out please do, I’ll be sitting a review of Coffea in due time to launch my cafe review section, Coffee@ ☕.

I’ve gotten back to reading Robin Sharma’s blog again, there’s some really get stuff there, a lot of which i try to apply and a lot of advise that has helped me. This week i read the 51 Ways Ordinary People Reached World-Class and i want to talk about Way #10

Don’t check your mobile when you’re meeting with another person. It’s rude. And rude people don’t reach world-class.

i’ve been trying my best to apply this over the week and i have to say that i have been particularly successful.

The mobile age has brought us so much, but at the same time it has taken away a few important things… number 1 being our Focus. With all sorts of gadgets buzzing and notification and messages coming in most of us are never really focused on what is at hand, and the sad state is that a lot of us (myself included) put priority on that message we get or that Facebook notification or that Tweet over Present Physical Company. We are so distracted, we say we are multi-taskig but really that’s just an excuse, we lack Focus.

As Robin puts it, We live i the Age of Dramatic Distraction.

Work and life now move faster than ever before. We live in The Age of Dramatic Distraction with emails and text messages and cell phones and Facebook notifications screaming for our attention. All this time spent on unimportant – but seemingly urgent – things are draining your energy, costing you money and ruining your peace of mind. Oh, it’s all messing up your health too.

 

Being busy isn’t being productive.

Multitasking doesn’t mean you’re getting more done.

It’s just means that you aren’t clear on what you want,

It means that you can’t focus.

Focus has become such a rare commodity, and we have to start protecting it and more than that, we need to strengthen it.

Focus is a vital to Productivity in what ever it i you want to do. It’s the difference between Excellence and Mediocrity.

This lack of Focus has created a world where great thoughts are killed midway by distraction or even if they do survive they aren’t allowed to grow because we do not spend enough time in solitude. I find that my best thoughts come when i spend some time alone, whether it is my morning Holy Hour or just an hour during the day where i separate myself from the world and think. If we don’t spend any time in solitude thinking how will we ever be clear on what we want and how to get there? And it is because of this lack of clarity that so many of us live i a daze, going through life one day at a time, being busy for the sake of feeling that we are being productive and moving forward with our lives but in truth we’re not.

Please don’t confuse activity with productivity. Many many people are simply busy being busy. – Robin Sharma

And the most dangerous of all Distractions is Entertainment. You have the old timer, TV and also the more notorious new kids on the block, mobile gaming (candy crush, angry birds etc). Not there’s nothing wrong with entertainment, these games to have stimulating effects on our minds but like all things it must be in moderation. Without moderation TV, console gaming and mobile gaming will numb our minds, will encourage procrastination and waste the days we’ve been given.

Here are some suggestion to help us grow our Focus, kill our Distractions and be more Productive.

1. Be in the present
when we are in the company of people;
let us not play with our phones,
let us not fiddle with our phones
let us not reply messages (if it was really important they should call you)
Focus on the people in front of us, and if we need to take or make a call, excuse ourselves and come back after. I had a great dinner with a friend the other day, we didn’t touch our phones for a good 2 hours (except when our parents called) and i had a great time. Such great conversation and stimulating thoughts were born or developed or expressed.

Focus on the physical present, the virtual present if there at out\r disposal, we are not slaves to it, it serves us.

2. Do Not Disturb Mode
when we want to work, let’s put our gadgets on Do Not Disturb and set them away. Work for a set time, say an hour, and then take a break. and then repeat. This is a great way to strengthen our focus and discipline. Start with a goal of 30 minutes at the beginning and then as the days progress, increase it. There will come a time when we will be able to work 4 hours without distraction and not eve feel it.

3. Solitude
spend time in solitude, just us and our thoughts. These are the times ideas are born, the time when dreams become reality. Spend time in absolute quiet, think about life, have a pen and paper to record ideas and thoughts, or use Evernote like i Do (but you the need to turn off notifications). Here maybe start with 15 minutes of Solitude ad progress from there. I can do about 30 to 45 minutes nowadays. No communication, no reading, no talking to anyone but ourselves. My aim is to be reach an our of Solitude daily, preferably the mornings.

4. Explain & Inform
Explain to the people we hangout most with about what we are trying to do. If they support us then we know they want us to grow and hence care of us, if they don’t support… then they might not understand the importance of focus or not care about us as much as we thought; this may call for a Friendship Reconsideration. The people that are closest to us will not only understand but support, and does who do not are those who will bring us down… keep them at arms length.

If you have ay other suggestion please feel free to comment below.

Hope that i’ve been helpful,

Straight From The Heart

20130419-135229.jpg

Related articles

 

Coffee for One @Artisan Coffee Bar


20121201-173510.jpg

Good Evening guys,

It’s a nice cool rainy evening here in Bangsar, actually I’m not sure whether it is still raining, cause the weather has been rather bipolar, cause I’m actually indoors right now. Having a nice Flat White, courtesy of Artisan Coffee Bar, enjoying the music from my headphones and thinking. It’s nice, I don’t feel alone yet I’m alone with my thoughts, if that makes any sense. That’s the thing about coffee places, a place you can be alone but not really feel alone. It’s a sort of mid point, away from people that you are always with which explains how one feels alone but surrounded by strangers that cause a little background buzz, a sort of background connection to humanity that brings about the feeling that you’re not alone. Essentially the difference being that you’re alone on a conscious level, a level where you’re alone with your thought and the other being you’re not alone on a subconscious level, where you are aware that there are people around you but you don’t think about it, it’s all just background processes that don’t matter at the moment, just background music if you will. Just comforting background music because, I think, even when we want to be alone, we don’t really want to be completely alone in silence. Why? Because we feel disconnected from humanity, and most would rather not have that. Especially now, in an age of extreme connectivity. I feel that one of the major factors for the success of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc is because people want to always feel connected, to never lose the connection to humanity. To never feel “alone”.

Or then again, maybe it’s just me 🙂

Now that’s not to say that people never want to be truly alone. Most of the time just turning off the phone and heading to a cafe alone will be enough, but there will be times when the connectivity gets really overwhelming we are going to want to completely “detox” and really be alone, in silence. Too much of anything is never good.

I totally intended today’s post to be ‘A Work in Progress’, but I guess this will be it for today.

Hope you enjoyed my thoughts

Straight From The Heart

 

Saturday “Should Have Been Morning” Reflections


20120612-161442.jpg

Good evening everyone,

How’s everyone doing? Today has been really good. I’m in PD right now with some great friends, it’s been great so far 🙂 the drive down was great, I had really fun time driving down. Had some great food at this place in Seremban. The pics should be on Twitter.

So as for reflections, this week has been better, Monday to Wednesday was awesome, Thursday not so awesome and Friday and today have been great. Been getting back to my “good routines”, expect for the swimming in the mornings. Life is looking good, I’ve learnt to let go of things that I can’t control, I’ll do my best and leave the rest to life. That’s all that I can do. All you can do in life is your best. This somehow reminds me of this line

The price of discipline is always better than the pain of regret.

Keep that in mind, it is a very powerful thought.

This week has been filled with the right steps going forward, yes it wasn’t perfect, but the good definitely outweighed the bad. One of my most precious friendships, that was in some trouble, has turned around and it is looking really good. My good friend graduated from Pre-U. I got back to work. Ivy is on the way (3 weeks).

Looking back, I’ve learnt more about friendship, it’s not always easy, and it takes two to tango. There are always two sides to a story. Respect the people around you the same you would want people to respect you. Don’t dish out what you can’t handle and there are things in life that matter and others that don’t. Make sure you know the difference. Please pardon my language but there are things in life that you just got to look and say, “Fuggitt”. You know who and what’s important to you, and that’s all that matters.

Straight From The Heart

20120623-162856.jpg

Friendship


 

Good afternoon everyone. How are you guys feeling today? I took a “partial day off”. Slept at about 1am after having a great talking session with a friend, I really enjoyed it. He/she really knows how to listen and understands & relates to certain things that I’ve been through. So yea, I planned to wake up at 10:30am but my body told me to get up at 9am, so my sleep-wake cycle is back! Had a great breakfast, But it was such a nice cool morning, and I’ve been feeling jaded over the past few days that I decided to go back to sleep at 11:30am…. And took a 3 hour nap. 🙂

So now, it’s about 4:30 in the afternoon, I’m chilling at Starbucks Jaya One (where I just won a free drink! Lucky customer! Woo. Today I realised that I’ve been to Starbucks 24 times in the last month. :/) and I’m blogging, I’m accompanied by warren who’s studying and my Café Mocha (as is the standard MO).

So it’s the middle of week, half way through to the weekend, just keep doing your best work, you’re almost to the end of the week. It’s startling how fast the week passes by, many of us forget to actually live and go on autopilot. I did that for more than a year, trying to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Anyway, I feel like I’m rambling, So to the point, today I’m going to talk about friendship.

I value my friends very much, the ones who i really care for (old and new) are the ones who have always been there for me, and vice versa. They are so close to me that the distinction between family and friend starts becoming irrelevant. Most of these guys are so close to me that they are family,coming and going from my house as the please, they aren’t regarded as guests in my house. If they want a glass of water they go take it, I’m not getting it for them 🙂

And yes, I know not all friendships last forever, but I try to make them as meaningful as possible.i enjoy having deep conversations, conversations that go beyond the superficial and I believe this is the basis of a great friendship that will last, because even if you don’t see each other for a while, when you do meet up, it’ll be as though there was never a gap. Half of my A-Team is overseas, but when they get back, we’ll just Press Play. I skyped with a few of great friends from MUWCI a couple weeks back (not in a group session, individual sessions) and even though we hadn’t talked in over a year, it felt great, I still felt close to them, It was absolutely wonderful to see their faces, even though it was over a screen, it was great to see them and catch up. Another great friend of mine is coming back soon, haven’t seen him in months. Sorry, back to the point, why am I talking about friendship, because over the past few weeks I’ve made a lot more friends, and I’ve been developing those relationship, we’re getting closer, I’m getting to know them better and it’s no longer just a simple superficial relationship, there’s depth to it. Last night I spend four hours with someone who I didn’t even know a couple month back, but now I know we’re tight, it was an amazing conversation yesterday. We’ll see how things go with regards to permanent membership of my inner circle.

I value the members of my inner circle very much, these are the people that I hope to have in my life for a very long time. I want my kids to refer to them as aunty/uncle and their kids to do the same with me. I want our kids to think of each other as siblings, I want us to be a non-blood related family. May sound weird to many of you, but that’s what I want, and no, I’m not saying that I’m excluding my blood relatives from this, I’m just focusing on friends in this post.

And yes I know that there will be friends that will drift away, I’ll deal with that, but the ones that really matter will always be in my life or at least I hope so 🙂

I’m sorry that I didn’t write a “proper” piece today, my minds a little scattered, still on “Day Off” mode. Haha. Anyway, have a good day, love your family and your friends, and make sure they know it. 🙂

Straight From The Heart
Arkay6

 

The Power of the Hug


 

Good evening everyone, here’s a little post to end the day,

It’s the simplest thing in life that we are most guilty of taking for granted, these little things that can spur the best type of joy, happiness or love; enjoying the stars in the night sky whilst lying down on the cool grass, or having a great conversation with someone or the look on the face of someone you care about when you perform some simple random act of kindness, such as giving them a flower. It is these moments that can really make life worth living. However, my favourite among the simple things is, the hug.

The hug is such an underrated way of showing appreciation or affection. It can help someone feel safe, feel at home, feel like they matter, feel like wanted, most importantly it can make someone feel loved. The act of embracing your fellow human is so universal, so versatile. It can be used for almost anything whether it be a moment of congratulations or a moment of condolence; a moment of bliss or a moment of sadness; a moment of friendship or a moment of love.

The Hug is a simple act of which results in a more than proportional result, when executed right.

A hug should be all embracing, not mere bumping of the shoulders at an awkward angle, no person ever felt appreciate from a half hearted borderline pathetic hug. Do it right. Make the person you are about to hug feel like you actually want to do to and that it’s not just a formality.

I never truly appreciated the power held in a hug until an uncle of mine talked to me about it after he saw me give my mum a “hug”. He said that he never went a day without giving someone a proper hug because that hug made his day all that much better.

So stop being stingy with your hugs. Show the people you care about that you actually do care about them. You’re actions speak much louder than words. If you tell someone you love them or care for them, make sure your actions are in sync.

Good night,

Now go give your parents a hug, 🙂

Straight From The Heart

Arkay 6