Tony Schwartz's Blog

Three Powerful Lessons I Learned When I Got Offline
Mental Needs, Renewal, Technology | January 4, 2012
I hadn't been offline for more than a few hours in two and a half years — and only then because I was on safari in Botswana and had no choice.Typically, the first thing I would do when I got up in the morning was to get on my laptop to check a series of sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Google Analytics, and HBR.org, to see what comments my blogs had accumulated overnight.
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Take Back Your Attention
Focus, Mental Needs, Technology | February 10, 2011
As I sit down to write this blog, I'm facing a blank page. I know it's going to be difficult, because it always is. Maybe I'll just check my email first, or update on Facebook or Twitter, or read the morning headlines on The New York Times, or sneak a peak at Google Analytics, or read the comments readers have left overnight on my earlier posts.
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Digital Incivility: The Unseemly Rise of Rudeness
Email, Mental Needs, Technology | September 14, 2010
In its early days, one of the joys of email was the access it provided to people who might otherwise be inaccessible, or very difficult to reach. I still remember a New Yorker article written by John Seabrook in 1994, which was effectively my introduction to this new technology. Titled "Email from Bill," it was written as an exchange of a series of emails between Seabrook and Bill Gates.
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The Crash You Can Avoid
Mental Needs, Productivity, Technology | July 20, 2010
We live in a world that defines "more, bigger faster" as invariably better. It's an ethic that places the greatest value on companies that offer ever more products and services, and generate ever higher profits. It's an ethic that rewards and prizes people who work the longest hours, move at the highest speeds, take the least downtime, and juggle the most tasks at the same time. But it's also an ethic that can survive and prosper only so long as capacity — the planet's resources and our own — exceeds the demand we make on it.
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Email Addicts Anonymous
Email, Mental Needs, Technology | June 29, 2010
Do you wake up in the morning and bring your laptop into bed with you, or check it before you brush your teeth? Do you check email while you're driving, even though you're four times as likely to have an accident when you do? Are you answering email on your iPhone or Blackberry when you walk between meetings, or on your way to the parking lot? Do you keep answering while you're sitting in your car in your driveway or garage when you get home?
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