Learning in a fifteen-minute world

The story of Carol and Victor

It is 4.45 p.m. on a typical working day for Carol and Victor, in their small home office in an inner city area. At the front door is a courier tapping her foot , expecting immediate attention but for the moment both Victor and Carol are preoccupied.

In the next fifteen minutes Carol needs to finish a search on the World Wide Web for the latest news on an economic situation in Indonesia. She needs this information so that she can contribute to a telephone conference call at 5.00 p.m. with her major client and she is expected to contribute some intelligent comments on the export potential there. Victor is also frantically trying to get on top of his workload. He is already two days behind with his e- mails and the taxation department is chasing the latest financial reports . As well as this he is struggling to prepare for an upcoming examination at university. He is seriously thinking of dropping out and enrolling in an e-learning programme instead.

Needless to say Carol and Victor are feeling swamped. The courier has her demands too; she is expected to complete four more deliveries before 5.30 p.m. She wants to make the fast train home, so that she can make her commitment to coach the local girls basketball team at 7.00 p.m.

The ˜Story of Carol and Victor is indicative of what most of us face on a daily basis. We are living in a fifteen-minute world, where people struggle not only to do their job well and meet their obligations, but also do the learning and activities they desire to keep up to date and fulfilled.

In the fifteen-minute world, you are expected to respond and act to meet every obligation. It can at times be uncompromising and it pulls no punches. If left unchecked, you can quickly become burnt out and unproductive. Apart from escaping to a retreat somewhere in the country or locking the doors to your home and turning off all digital and electrical appliances, we all have to face the fifteen-minute world on a daily basis. You can easily become so busy that you never discover better ways of doing things and, as a result, can quickly fall into the trap of living a life full of ˜busyMess and not ˜busyness . This is a central challenge in modern business and has profound implications on how we win the knowledge game. Managers and businesses must find better ways to step outside this frantic fifteen-minute world and discover what is vital and important. At first such an investment may seem odd and out of character, but unless managers think deeply about their critical challenges they will never obtain the insight they need to move their businesses and lives forward with more imagination and potential.

Of course, the fifteen-minute world may not be all that bad; there is a certain excitement and engagement that comes from a busy fast-paced life. However, if our desire is to live a smarter and enjoyable existence we must put our thinking caps on to avoid some potential traps. These include trying to do too much, being too busy to really notice what is going on, failing to prioritize and not reducing unnecessary costs and activity.

Similarly, by not letting the fifteen-minute world dominate us it increases our chances of being more reflective and aware of people s concerns and expectations. This result being a greater potential for empathy, compassion and a real understanding of what is actually going on. On a personal level, I have found a regular practice of meditating has helped me to clear my mind and take a fresh look at situations. To do this I take a few moments each day to notice the rising and falling of my breathing and my state of mind. This simple exercise has helped me build a clearer view of what is really happening while creating a mind space where new insight may bubble up. During the four years I have been deploying this practice I have found I have more creativity and energy to fight the harder challenges in life by staying a little calmer. So, whatever method you use, whether it is taking time to sit in a park or undertaking a little exercise, do something each day to check into your mind on a regular basis. Such discipline will certainly help you to respond to the complexities, demands and pressures of modern living.