More OCD and #questiontime!

I’ve talked before about how the internet has given all of us a tendency towards exhibiting ADD characteristics (Dare you to read an entire article from start to finish without a single click of a link or over to another browser tab!) Yesterday I was laughing at myself though at my latest little display of internet related neurosis – OCD.  I absolutely cannot click on to my google reader site without then reading every single feed in there! Even if I really don’t have time. But I simply cannot leave any blog unread. Same with email. I absolutely HAVE to read and sort every message that comes in, whether at work or in my personal in-box. Otherwise I think it is like brain clutter to me. And I hate clutter in any form. Someone tweeted yesterday that his email in-box was down to 24 unread messages which was the lowest total in 3 years – and that he hoped to actually clear it sometime today. Oh, that thought just floored me! Now, I realize that if you are someone (like he is) who received probably hundreds at a time that you MUST learn to walk away from it. And honestly that was my big challenge in order to block out some reading time every night – step away from the RSS feeds! What I really did was manage them better – reduced the numbers on twitter & google reader – because I still have not once sat down to read my books with anything unread online 🙂

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Something that brought me some really bright spots last week is my passion for politics. The State of the Union address and then the almost impromptu town hall style meeting that the President had with members of the congressional GOP caucus on Friday. If you’ve seen a hastag around the internet recently such as this: #questiontime – that refers to the Q & A session between Obama and the GOP. It was *really* compelling (I would think for anyone from either side of the aisle) and I personally would LOVE to see more. I’m not the only one either. This is actually modeled after Q&A sessions that are regularly scheduled in some parliamentary systems such as Great Britain and Canada when the Prime Minister has to go before Parliament and face questions from members from all parties. I love the idea of it. And I certainly thought that the law makers asked MUCH better questions than the media normally does in a standard press conference! So my plea to you is – if you’d like to see more #questiontime go to this website and sign the petition urging the White House and Congress to do more of it.