The Guardian‘s Pick of the day: “Einstein’s Corner argues that multitasking is a ‘Sisyphean attempt to compete against the speed and reliability of our own technologies’. Has this blogger been reading my email?”
The intense demands of multitasking all but eliminate our ability to commit the requisite time and intellectual resources to the big picture. The result is fragmentation of our attention and time. … Fragmentation and a perceived need to shift focus every few minutes destroys our peripheral vision, and our peripheral vision is what provides context and balance in our lives.
“How many people on their death beds wish they’d spent more time in the office?,” asks Jeff Einstein. How do you multi-task?
Just as I posted this, I was also watching MSNBC whose media analysts were discussing today’s huge headline in the NY Post: “Holy Shiite.” I was ready to drop this story to pursue that one. But what about the 433 unread headlines in my RSS feed? The two diaries at Kos? My cat who wants to be petted? My kitchen which needs cleaning after the past two days? Those three books I’m reading simultaneously? The letter I need to write to my mother? And on and on.
And I’m proud of myself because I don’t have a cell phone? 🙂
against instant messaging. If I used instant messaging I would probably wind up putting my cigarette in my ear and pouring my coffee down my shirt.
I’m not into IM either. Anyone here do much of it?
I just counted how many browser windows I have open: Only 7. The Daou Report, Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, Brendan Nyhan on George Allens’ ugly history on racial issues (good one!), etc.
This Einstein guy is fun:
Here’s a few to get you started:
Fine print: Winning entries will be selected by an esteemed panel of judges, none of whom have silly names. Winners receive absolutely nothing…
No cell phone, no tv [ 10 yrs and counting ], public radio only – can’t deal w/ commercials and rants, regardless of the political persuasion, massive personal music library, voracious reader [ 1 book @ a time however], and savoring every moment I can spending time w/ those I love, and my dog, the Bu girl, and I are inseparable, even more so when it’s outdoors.
Instant messaging?… What’s that? I just got email 12 mos. ago…that’s enough – thank you! And Bootrib’s taking up way too much of my time. :{)
Live simply so that others may simply live.
My ability to multitask is limited to smoking my pie while I think. I am, however, able occasionally to follow the plot of a movie while eating popcorn.
Oops – smoking my pipe. Guess it is time to reload.
As a general rule I don’t multi-task when I’m on the internet. My job requires processing big reports and I do that in the background while I cruise the blogs.
My sanity says do one thing at a time – with piles of things that need to be done.
A few multi-tasking things I can do:
Walk and chew gum – check
Walk and smoke – check
Drive and sing along with the radio – check
Do things quicky, and move on. Being lazy helps.
Do things that can be done at the same time at the same time, for instance:
No messaging, no RSS, but I get my e-mails and my blogs on my phone, which i use way too much, whenever my attention is not caught by anything else, however temporarily…
I am very protective of my work time.
Unless I’m doing something trite I prefer to concentrate. That includes not having a cell phone, keeping IM turned off, and only having a minimum amout of windows open, just enough to get the current job done. Before I had a ‘bionic telephone answering service’ (Ms. ATinNM) I would screen calls via an answering machine.
During work hours I often have several sources of information available: books, journals, the web, and etc. but I’m using them to expedite finding a particular fact or reference not as sources of distraction.
Academic work doesn’t really lend itself to multi-tasking (although I suppose engaging in participant observation – participating in an activity while simultaneously attempting to take systematic observations of what I’m doing – could be a form of multi-tasking). I can’t even listen to music if I’m working.
Nor does child care lend itself to multi-tasking – especially with an emergent toddler who manages to find new and interesting ways to defeat our babyproofing.
Nope, I’m a one at a time man, myself. Doesn’t mean I have a terrible long attention span – I’ll jump from activity to activity, but I just can’t do them all at the same time.
I am, however, proficient at patting my head and rubbing my tummy.
I multitask fairly well. While at work it’s pretty common to manage several projects, take support calls and handle in house issues. I guess that’s why I like firefox so much, the tabs allow me to easily switch back and forth between sites.
I am starting to get rebilious at work, I had to work on my birthday which fell on a Sunday.