How To Make Space In A World With Too Much Technology: Daniel Sih (Transcript)

Here is the full text and summary of Daniel Sih’s talk titled “How To Make Space In A World With Too Much Technology” at TEDxHobart conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Life is busy and cluttered. There’s more information, more emails, more tasks to get through each day and not enough space. If this glass represents our finite capacity, our limited time, energy and attention, well then this overflowing glass is life in the digital age. There are endless text messages, meetings and notifications, physical drop-offs and pick-ups and dance rehearsals and, of course, the Netflix episodes and goofy YouTube clips you’d like to see. I mean, it goes on and on.

When I think about my life and the leaders I coach, most of us don’t need more information. We don’t need more opportunity. What we really need, what we long for is more space, space to think, rest, plan and breathe, space to be curious, space to be creative, space to think about our inner world and reflect on who we are and where we’re heading.

In the digital age, we are beyond the point where we can get everything done by being organised and efficient. I mean, like this glass, there will always be more than you and I can do. Now, this may feel overwhelming but it’s actually good news because when we finally accept the reality that there will always be more than we can do, that we’ll never finish on a Friday with everything ticked off our list, well, then we can let go and accept the reality and begin to make hard choices about what we choose to put in our glass as a priority and then what we allow to flow out.