Posts tagged time

Hammered into our heads is a constantly changing state of the world. Umpteen number of simultaneous events transforming our space into a complex state. Multi-tasking pervades. Lack of focus on a single task is easy or simply linked to a lower grade of gray cells. Some might claim superior multi-tasking capabilities. But the stark truth is that a normal human being’s mind isn’t made to process more than one thing at a time. If not less, it can be a single core processor at its peak. Realizing the fact is the most important thing here. The following rhetoric might seem exaggerated. It is not.

On the phone with your dad, how efficiently can you process his speech while sporting an active IM session simultaneously? Bits and pieces it is (plus the wrong/incomplete phrases on chat). Drop multi-tasking I’d say.

Abstaining: A short polemic might not impress upon you to drop a ‘virtue’ from your repertoire. But believe me; multi-tasking takes you nowhere. You are rewarded with spurious, down-scaled and porous outputs, nevertheless, several dozes of flattering acknowledgments by the social folk. These acknowledgments feed your ‘skill’ rather than you analyzing the poor output. This disturbing phenomenon, a virtue to some, with time has gotten so intricately weaved into our lives that we fail to notice it anymore. Even while working on a project document you’d find your email, chat client, music player and whatnot running simultaneously on your computer (music could also work as a catalyst for some friends; pardon). We like to be available to anyone in case they need us on chat or email. Our emails don’t bear the weight to unread mails for long. Come on, can’t they? Unless we start to realize what mire are we in, recovering is going to be tough. Realizing is the easy part. Rest of it is easier.

Once you know name of the knot, next comes the part where you learn to unsnarl it. A benign ticking kitchen timer can be the tool. Every time a ticker ticks, the back of your brain makes you aware of what you set it for. It helps you keep the now unimportant chats and emails aside. Note that these things were equally important before you brought in the timer. A simple timer makes you aware of the priorities at every point of time. You start learning to focus and do it without the timer soon.

However the ancient art of dovetailing isn’t to be confused with multi-tasking. Multi-tasking deals with the brain shifting focus in short spans of time unlike dovetailing. You could have put water for boiling while you are washing the vegetables or chopping them. In this case the flame is boiling the water, not you. Agreed, a little effort goes into checking if the water has boiled. Even that effort can be eliminated by simple techniques like timed microwaves. This isn’t really multi-tasking, it is dovetailing. People started doing it long back to widen the efficacy of their efforts. It does increase productivity but the case itself being diametrically on the opposite end of what we are dealing with.

Simple timers and a little introspection could help change the way we produce results, results being much sounder and efforts being efficient. A realization and a little start-up effort is all that we need. Change lives by allotting separate sessions for different tasks, even though if the task is just – checking email. Don’t mix it up.

Related articles

• 5 Ways Timers Can Help You Be More Productive (pickthebrain.com)
• How NOT to Multitask – Work Simpler and Saner | zen habits (zenhabits.net)