Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference is happening this week in the Bay Area. Over 5000 participants will hear about Apple’s newest products and software and they, in turn, will share their latest and greatest ideas for apps, better ways to build iTunes and how Apple should improve the Apple Watch.

In a similar vein, a Tweet came to my attention this past week about how the continued additions to mobile software is creating so much complexity for users without adding significantly greater value. No I didn’t know that I could download stickers to i-message that I could then send to my friends. Or that “Digital Touch” allows me to draw sketches or show my beating heart as another way to represent “I love you” (or perhaps that my trip to the emergency room went okay.)

Sure, these things are cool but how much time do we spend learning them and then trying them out to the point that the recipients of our SMS go ahead and think…”is that really necessary?” Time is a finite resource and when it is spent one way, that means it can’t be spent another way.

We all talk about our priorities but we rarely talk about our non-priorities or where we are determined not to spend our time. In our facilitation work, we always clarify with the group what our “non-purpose” for this meeting so that we don’t get bogged down on some issue that drains energy away from our primary task.

Remember that building resilience begins before we subject ourselves to challenging events. We can always say no to using emojis and haptic interactions which means we may have more time for thinking about what make our work valuable and adds to the success of our enterprises.

© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2017