From tomorrow onwards I will reduce my screen time to only one battery load a day. That means approximately 3 hrs, depending on the applications running. If I decrease my screen light and don’t watch videos i might get it to 3.5 hrs.
Why am i doing this?
I am convinced that the 2 dimensional working environment is counter productive for inspiration and creativity. Or as my co speaker tobias explains well in his (german) pechau kucha presentation: we replaced so many offline activities with screen stuff which leads not only to inefficiency but to boredom and emotional atrophy. That has happened to me long time ago and know of myriads others. And seriously: Shouldn’t we start fighting against this machine thing at some point?
I think i can get more done if i carefully plan my computer time and reduce it to what it is, a tool for execution.
So here are the 5 activities I will try our for a week:
1) checking emails twice a day (which includes switching off the push service of my android)
2) drafting texts/emails/presentations offline and then typing them down rather quickly.
3) reading news offline (maybe I will try NIIU for blogs)
4) going offline on skype thus reducing spontaneous talks
5) preparing skype conversations and scheduling them to no more then 15 mins.
In a week i will tell you how it went. If you have methods to stay focussed in front of the screen, let us know.
Since I left Palomar5 in january to finish my studies and prepare for the birth of my son, I was thinking a lot about the project. What did I love about it? What was the main learning? And what would I do differently the next time? And what is the next thing I do?
What I loved.
The most amazing thing about Palomar5 was the emotional intelligence of each resident and the collective. Spending 6 weeks in 6 sqm boxes, very close to each other requires a high discipline but most importantly a love for people and life. If you ever organize a camp look first at the human capability. EVERYONE needs to fit. The same accounts for starting a company, I guess. (Thanks to my co-founder Dominik for his excellent choice of people).
Next the incredible high energy level which was there constantly for 6 weeks. You could see it day and night It was so high during the entire time that at the end of it, I wasn’t sure if was ever enjoying life without being surrounded by this crowd. Well, turns out I am, due to these two.
And third it was the intensity of learning new things all the time with an incredible high speed. New things every second and inspiration everywhere. It was a pressure fuel up for six weeks.
The big learning.
The big think where Palomar5 failed was the a follow up structure for the emerging projects. The innovation process was close to perfect. The ideas and prototypes amazing. But what failed was preparing the execution by e.g. setting up a fund, provide investor contacts, following up projects, manage the community. We didn’t do that on purpose, we simply forgot. Being super focussed on preparing the best camp we could imagine, we were not capable of thinking any further than the presentation of the ideas at the end.
What should be different next time?
If I was to do an innovation camp again, I would prepare the time after the camp more in depth. How are the ideas/prototypes/projects put into practice? How are they financed? Where will the project members work? Is there enough money to make them move?
Overall Palomar5 was an amazing experience and I am so happy to have shared it with all the team members, the residents and our partners.
The next project: betapitch
As I still believe in the creation of ideas in innovative formats and the execution in an incubation setting I will try something out. Together with the betahaus Berlin we (Christoph and Madeleine from betahaus and Anna from Rocket) will organize a Start-Up Pitch and see how many good Ideas are around us. The winning team gets six months of free office space.
One focus will particularly lie on Social Businesses such as xrunner (something which was also dominant at Palomar5 but never explicitly called that way).
A couple of days ago we started to build the mongolian ger (which you also call yurt) in my girlfriends parents garden. The ger was imported from Mongolia and his 36 sqm big. In the middle there is a stove to keep you warm in winter. Apparently it stays warm even if it is -40°C outside.
Today we finished the leveling of the ground (it lies at the slope of a hill) and did a test build-up to see the diameter for building the foundation. In the next days we will put insulation, a layer of cement and a laminat flooring on the sandy ground. It will hopefully be finished in the next days so we can finally move into our first own house.
When I was 10, I had this romantic idea about having a big tent in which I could invite all my friends for my birthday. Ever since I am passionate about mobile homes: rafts, caravans, tents, yurts and also huts and treehouses. My need for shelter and security meet the one for adventure and mobility. If it is balanced everything is good. If I am too settle I get crazy. So the ger is the perfect house for me: stable but easily movable.
I am also into boats. Last year I built a raft with two friends and we wanted to go to Hamburg from Potsdam. I guess we overestimated the stream and only got to Werder (20km from Potsdam). It was a great prototype anyway and the next raft needs to be high-see capable in order to go from Potsdam to Copenhagen.
“I am on holidays on this planet for a couple of years and want to try out everything during that time, so I can form my own opinion without being dependent on others”
I just came across this quote and thought, hey this is a nice life philosophy and a perfect sentence to start my new blog. Not only does it contain a justification for enjoying every moment we are on earth, it also contains a high level of the “don’t take yourself too serious” attitude. And that’s part of what I want to blog about.
I am appealed by the fact that we are in the flow, locations are changing – mentally and physically. My reflection on that and the whole idea of living in the now will be shared here, but also my actual location, so we can physically interact.
I am also gonna write about project ideas and current projects. At the moment it is called Elliot, but might be changing soon, as I think about founding a Social Business Incubator.
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