The "Times Square Effect" - Definitely a challenge, but not really a problem

Hello again all You readers of my daily posts and followers of my blog. After yesterday`s excursion back to my - mostly boring - early childhood years during which I grew up in the small village in the middle of nowhere, I decided to share today with You some experiences with absolutely the contrary type of challenges in my life, with which we altogether are beeing confronted nowadays from the wake up ring of our alarm clock in the morning until falling into "light sleep", as the brain researchers have named the first two of the in total five different stages of the human sleep cycle, in the evening. 

Actually I am referring to what the psychologists describe as the famous "Times Square Effect". But before starting to describe, what the "Times Square Effect" is, I would like to give wikipedia the opportunity to explain to all of us, what the Times Square is.

Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment center, and neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue. Brightly lit by numerous billboards and advertisements, it stretches from West 42nd to West 47th Streets, and is sometimes referred to as "the Crossroads of the World", "the Center of the Universe" and "the heart of the world". One of the world's busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists, while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days. 

Here a collage of pictures from the holiday week, which have I spent together with my daughter Christine in the "Big Apple" at the end of 2002, one year after the terrible terrorist attacks on the twin towers in Manhattan:

Now that we know, what the Times Square is, we can talk about the "Times Square Effect". The term "Times Square Effect" has been coined originally by neuroscientists and is widely used today by psychologists. It is often also called as "sensory overload", which happens when one or more of the human body`s senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment. In the case of the Times Square this is symbolized by the enormous quantity of adverts, signs, movie screens and blinking lights. Apart lots of other negative symptoms and serious disorders, which can result from exposition to such environment for longer periods, this cerebral overload provokes that practically nothing can be observed or remembered within such an environment.  

I choose this as subject for my today`s post, because we all are constantly beeing bombarded with all kinds of information during the day and the big challenge for us is, how to manage this confrontation in a sane but participative and productive way. To close our eyes and ears and to abstain from active utilisation of the information available can definitely not be the right choice. Somehow we need to find means how to select the right type and quantity of information and how to to use it actively and correctly. 

When I became responsible for a whole company including all its employees, processes and business twenty years ago, I started to develop my own style and tools for handling lots of information permanently. And I must say, that I have been quite successful with this and I have always tried at the different companies, where I have been employed so far, to share these experiences with my management teams. Because for us as managers information is the driver for all our activities and decisions. 

Just as a small example the explanation, how I deal efficiently with the daily flood of emails which I receive. First of all I keep the entrance box of my email account permanently empty, means I look it up constantly during the day and sort what is coming in. Unnecessary messages and messages with information, which I just need to note, are beeing deleted immediately. For all other emails I have installed directly below my entrance box several folders for email categories which I named "today", "hot", "to do", "general follow up" and "follow up direct reports". All messages with which I need to work actively during the same day still, are beeing moved into the "today" folder. Emails with very important subjects, but which must not necessarily be touched again during the same day still go into the "hot" folder. All emails with contents which require activities of me, but which are somehow not urgent, are beeing moved into the "to do" folder. Emails with subjects, which I need to observe or accompany further  are beeing put into the "general follow up" folder. And - last not least - all emails with subjects, which I need to follow up directly with single management team members, are beeing moved into the subfolders which I have created for each of them within the folder "follow up direct reports". 

Does this sound complicated to You? I can assure You firmly that this is a very simple but at the same time an extremely efficient way of working. It oblidges me to clean up the entrance box permanently and to empty my "today" folder before I switch off my notebook every evening. Whenever I find the necessary time, I go through the "hot", the "to do" and the "general follow up" folders and work upon or just reorder these, if necessary. My system is completely flexible. The "follow up direct reports" folders for my management team colleagues are very helpful for the individual follow up meetings resp. conferences which I hold once per week with each of them. This procedere has shown very high performance and very good results during the last years, when we all have been travelling around the globe so much and it has helped us, to keep close touch and maintain stable control of all our projects and workflow processes. But for sure, such systems depend fully on the establishment and maintenance of the necessarry high discipline. If You start to relax and loosen Your discipline, such systems get messed up within a few days and make You loose totally the control of Your procederes. 

This was just a simple example for one of  todays "Times Square Effect" challenges in our daily business and private life. I will share my experiences with other related subjects in future posts.

Enjoy the great new day, which has just started. Have fun and success! See You back here in my blog again tomorrow.