Incite 5/20/2015: Slow down [to speed up]
When things get very busy it’s hard to stay focused. There is so much flying at you, and so many things stacking up. Sometimes you just do the easy things because they are easy. You send the email, you put together the proposal, you provide feedback on the document. It can be done in 15 minutes, so you do it. Leaving the bigger stuff for later. At least I do. Then later becomes the evening, and the big stuff is still lagging. I pop open the laptop and try to dig into the big stuff, but that’s very hard to do at the end of the day. For me, at least. In the meantime a bunch more stuff showed up in the inbox. A couple more things need to get done. Some easy, some hard. So you run faster, get up earlier, rearrange the list, get something done. Wash, rinse, repeat. Sure, things get done. But I need to ask whether it’s the right stuff. Not always. I know this is a solved problem. For others. They’ll tell me about their awesome Kanban workflow to control unplanned work. How they use a Pomodoro timer to make sure they give themselves enough time to get something done. Someone inevitably busts out some GTD goodness or possibly some Seven Habits wisdom. Sigh. Here’s the thing. I have a system. It works. When I use it. The lack of a system isn’t my problem. It’s that I’m running too fast. I need to slow down. When I slow down things come into focus. Sure, more stuff may pile up. But not all that stuff will need to get done. The emails will still be there. The proposal will get written, when I have a slot open to actually do the work. And when I say slow down, that doesn’t mean work less. It means give myself time to mentally explore and wander. With nowhere to be. With nothing to achieve. I do that through meditation, which I haven’t done consistently over the last few months. I prioritized my physical practices (running and yoga) for the past few months, at the expense of my mental practice. I figured if I just follow my breath when running I can address both my mental and physical practice at the same time. Efficiency, right? Nope. Running and yoga are great. But I get something different from meditation. I’m most effective when I have time to think. To explore. To indulge my need to go down paths that may not seem obvious at first. I do that when meditating. I see the thought and sometimes I follow it down a rathole. I don’t know where it will go or what I’ll learn. I follow it anyway. Sometimes I just let the thought pass and return my awareness to the breath. But one thing is for sure – my life flows a lot easier when I’m meditating every day. Which is all that matters. So forgive me if I don’t respond to your email within the hour. I’ll forgive myself for letting things pile up on my to do list. The emails and tasks will be there when I’m done meditating. It turns out I will be able to work through lists much more efficiently once I give myself space to slow down. Strangely enough, that allows me to speed up. –Mike Photo credit: “Slow Down” originally uploaded by Tristan Schmurr The fine folks at the RSA Conference posted the talk Jennifer Minella and I did on mindfulness at the 2014 conference. You can check it out on YouTube. Take an hour and check it out. Your emails, alerts and Twitter timeline will be there when you get back. Securosis Firestarter Have you checked out our new video podcast? Rich, Adrian, and Mike get into a Google Hangout and.. hang out. We talk a bit about security as well. We try to keep these to 15 minutes or less, and usually fail. May 4 – RSAC wrap-up. Same as it ever was. March 31 – Using RSA March 16 – Cyber Cash Cow March 2 – Cyber vs. Terror (yeah, we went there) February 16 – Cyber!!! February 9 – It’s Not My Fault! January 26 – 2015 Trends January 15 – Toddler December 18 – Predicting the Past November 25 – Numbness October 27 – It’s All in the Cloud October 6 – Hulk Bash September 16 – Apple Pay August 18 – You Can’t Handle the Gartner Heavy Research We are back at work on a variety of blog series, so here is a list of the research currently underway. Remember you can get our Heavy Feed via RSS, with our content in all its unabridged glory. And you can get all our research papers too. Network-based Threat Detection Operationalizing Detection Prioritizing with Context Looking for Indicators Overcoming the Limits of Prevention Applied Threat Intelligence Building a TI Program Use Case #3, Preventative Controls Use Case #2, Incident Response/Management Use Case #1, Security Monitoring Defining TI Network Security Gateway Evolution Introduction Recently Published Papers Endpoint Defense: Essential Practices Cracking the Confusion: Encryption & Tokenization for Data Centers, Servers & Applications Security and Privacy on the Encrypted Network Monitoring the Hybrid Cloud Best Practices for AWS Security Securing Enterprise Applications Secure Agile Development Trends in Data Centric Security Leveraging Threat Intelligence in Incident Response/Management The Future of Security Incite 4 U Don’t believe everything you read: The good news about Securosis’ business is that we don’t have to chase news. Sure, if there is something timely and we have room on our calendar, we’ll comment on current events. But if you look at our blog lately it’s clear we’re pretty busy. So we didn’t get around to commenting on this plane hacking stuff. But if we wait around long enough, one of our friends will say pretty much what I’m thinking. So thanks to Wendy who summed up the situation nicely. And that reminds me of something I have to tell my kids almost every day. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. You aren’t getting the full story. Media outlets,
