Are you old enough to remember the Telex machine?

I hate to give away my age, but I do. Before the age of the internet, email, and even the fax machine, the Telex machine allowed organisations to send simple text based messages through the phone lines. I know it makes me sound like a bit of a dinosaur, but I miss those days. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet and all the wonderful things it brings. Netflix, Uber Eats, real time football league updates! But what I don’t love is the culture of “now, now, now” that it’s created. Everything has to be instant. And everyone is after my attention, they want it right now, and there’s no shortage of ways they can contact me to try and get it. 

I’ve got emails landing in my inbox, WhatsApps pinging all day long, LinkedIn messages popping up, the phone ringing, SMS messages coming in, and sometimes all from the same person trying to sell me something! And then there’s the new “trend” of cold outreach, where they don’t even give you a website to check them out. They just send you a DM saying they’d like to speak with you and to “Book a 15 minute chat” and all will be revealed. I hate that. I don’t want a chat. Send me your website, and I’ll decide for myself if I’m interested. It’s a little overwhelming, if I’m honest. 

I am no newbie when it comes to time management. I’ve done numerous courses, read books, and I’ve got over 35 years of experience in the freight business. You don’t get here if you can’t handle high volumes of demands on your time. But I have to be honest, I am finding it hard to keep up with it all. 

I’ve got my Pomodoro technique. I know I’ve spoken about that before, and that keeps me focused when I’m working on a specific task. But how do you balance everything when you’re being pulled in so many different directions? How do you prioritise your time when everyone wants a piece of it? Do you do a daily inbox cull?  Delete everything that’s unsolicited or unimportant without giving it a second look? Do you scale down your communication channels? Only accept emails or WhatsApps and switch off your DMs? Or are you just accepting that the world moves this fast now and you have to run if you want to keep up? 

I’d really love to hear your thoughts on this one, I need a fresh perspective and some good advice.