Connor Davidsons' - Newest Articles.

Connor Davidson

Are you always in a Rush? Over Working Yourself? Wish Stairs were Slides? Then Join the Club!

Hello! Leap out of bed twenty minutes late and smell the coffee, for the two or three seconds it takes you to wolf it down, while running out to your car and franticly fumbling in your pockets and on your mobile (sandwiched between your ear and shoulder) and shout bye to everyone at home with the person on the phone begging you not to go. This is the great blur people call the twenty first centaury. People now walk at warp speed and every second is a minute late.

Over the years I've, and I bet you have, heard some ridiculous stories of people in a rush. Ask yourself have I ever:

1.       Ran up stairs two steps at a time?

2.       Ran down stairs two steps at a time? I can tell you, from experience, it feels weird and is very dangerous.

3.        Power walked through packed corridors reading reports?   

4.       Drunk a whole cup of tea/coffee/Bovril (yuck)/ other hot liquid in one gulp?

5.       Walked into a door? 

6.       Climbed out a window rather than a proper exit? I'm not joking I've seen it done!

7.       Shouted at an elevator to hurry up?

8.       Squeezed into an elevator just before the doors closed? The other elevator is just far too far away. Anyway, who calls elevators these days anyway?    

9.       Went up the down escalator or down the up escalator?

10.    Told a clerk to keep the change – you just don't have time?

11.   Worked over your social life?

12.   Talked on two phones simultaneously?  

I could go on but you get the idea-we're all in a rush. The great rats are racing in the fast lane now. Or why would we have fast food, faster download, high speed connection, online check-in at airports (does it defeat the purpose of checking in?),  instant messaging and txt (pronounced too-xt) language?     

There is a phrase that is now common and that is "super mum" (or dad; though no-one ever says that). These "super mums" are up early in the morning,  work by day, work evenings (and weekends), spend their evening looking after kids, while also finding time - in their frantic evenings- to socialise and then by n-.  I best stop there – they will find time to read this.

According to research walking speeds have increased by 10% per year. Average waking speeds are now around three miles per hour rising to around 5.5- 6 for people (like me) who are in a rush.

Being in a rush and constantly being busy is not good for you: it is important to have a social life and you have to realise that there is more to life than work - It just takes a lot of looking.

Personally, I am a workaholic and am always busy. It is not fun and causes so many problems but how to do less? I am out all day, I spend most of my evenings studying for a course, I run this column once a week, do SearchWarp's WarpTalk, run three websites and am writing two books.

Yet, I do try playing hide and seeking with relaxation – when I find the damn think I take it. But the damn thing is so bloody good at the game I can never find it. The greatest step forward is my new rule: I refuse to work after 10:00 and get very grumpy after 9:00.

The greatest problem with always being busy is the fact your human. Being human is so in-efficient: we get tired, we can't be bothered but, most importantly, we have a finite capacity for work. After you have worked so hard your brain gets tired and your productivity takes a nose dive. As much as you feel like you're a robot, your not.

I'm going to try to find balance and I hope you will join me. It's not going to be easy and the road is covered in pot holes - since work will always be a big part of any successful person's life. But you're human and you need down time.

As for the fast walking thing that is here to stay: if you have to move from one place to the next in a short space of time your not going to teleport. But when the opportunity arises take it slow – there is now no rush.

So, slow down as much as possible. Take your time. Relax sometimes. There is a rush. But there is time for most things – including a holiday.  

Visit Britain: We have Beer, Booze and lot of Bureaucracy, which, will Guarantee a Hangover

With this article I want to take a real hard look at bureaucracy (preferably not the vomit) and determine if it is the most wonderful thing since meticulously sliced bread or as bad as signing a form under the dotted line in pencil.

The biggest problem in terms of government with bureaucracy is cost. Remember when I was taking about bureaucracy being drunk? Now, bureaucracy is not just out for a few pints in the village pub. Oh, no they are sitting in the top floor of the Burj Al Arab drinking bottles of vintage champagne.  To give a tangible example: the conservative party vowed to save the NHS one and a half billion pounds a year by simply cutting back on bureaucracy. Taking the population of the UK to be sixty one million that would work out as £24 pounds per person – thank you very much for the saving if only we were allowed to keep it. And that's looking at only one government agency.

A while back I read in the Guardian that of about 350 officers only 10 will be out policing. What a colossal waste of money and resources. I ask: is all this paper work worth it? Would they not be better off away from their desks "on the beat"? Or I am totally wrong?

Then you have banking. I went to take out a bureaucratic bank account with a bureaucratic bank in the great bureaucracy we call the UK. Here is what happened…

I went into the bank to open an account. I first had to show some identity and then go through some security questions with the lady. Having done that I had to go on the phone to someone else who went through identical security questions and then asked things like: where would the money be coming from, a bunch of numbers that are now my alternate name and then they asked me if I wanted them to send me some marketing junk or bureaucracy to ensure my shredder never goes on a diet. After about an hour in the bank and 120 questions, or so, later I plodded out without even having an open account. Then I had to fill in an application form. Don't they already know I want the account and why wait a week for the form to arrive in the post? They already know enough to write a short biography.

Alas, as annoying as all of this was, I am quite happy that they done all of this because it means I am safe. I'd stay for two hours if it meant my money was that bit safer.

I asked my twitter followers for some opinions (it is good to hear what other people think rather than just me all the time) on bureaucracy and I got an interesting response from Oscar MacAndrew where he talks about applying for a national insurance number from Revenue and Customs:  "I had to phone up HM rev to apply for an application form to be sent to me, after I fill it out. I send it off and I should get my national insurance number after that and that was just today". He goes on to summarise bureaucracy: "everything takes forever because it has to be perfect."     

But despite bureaucracy being such an expensive, time consuming and often wasteful activity it is a huge part of management. In order to effectively manage anything it must have systems in place to ensure everything works properly. It makes banking safe - imagine if the lady in the bank said "never mind bringing in your identity your probably who you say you are and as for the security questions I really can't be bothered… it's all bureaucracy and no-one, apart from management, honestly cares". Do you think we would be in a pickle if that sort of thing started happening? Or would you rather go into see the doctor and have to explain in full medical jargon the full history of treatment you have received in your life or would you rather they just wrote a file on you?

So, I hope I have showed you that bureaucracy is a problem and that we should take steps to curb it - we have gone too far. But always remember the previous paragraph: bureaucracy does speed operations and is important. But it should never take away in the way it has to the police force. Many people say that bureaucracy has crippled the police force and in terms of productivity and "on the street" policing it has indeed. Sadly, much of the bureaucracy out there is not for you but rather for the protection of the writer.

• Previous Posts:

• Are you always in a Rush? Over Working Yourself? Wish Stairs were Slides? Then Join the Club!
• Visit Britain: We have Beer, Booze and lot of Bureaucracy, which, will Guarantee a Hangover
• Why (sort of) Seeing a Ghost/ Ghoul / Thing didn't make me any less Sceptical about their Existence
• Just Out for a Pleasant Walk to Throw Non-White Humble Pies at BNP Members
• The Importance of Reading and how you can Read More (For Adults and Children Alike)
• The Greatest Problem with the Internet is its Greatest Asset
• Schedules and Organisation must be Forms of Obscure Inverse Calculus
• Ahoy Here Blows a Happy International Speak like a Pirate Day with Corny Jokes for Ye All

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• Digging Up Bones Part II, Something's Happening Here
• Digging Up Bones Part I, Childhood Scars
• The Twin Set
• Learning to Hear What Others Are Really Saying
• More Thoughts from the Reluctant Student of Depression
• Personally Speaking: Some Thoughts from a Reluctant Student of Depression
• Identifying Abuse in a Relationship

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