Right before my adult life began, I started to hear about this thing called multitasking.
It was offered by the people in charge of saddling us with the truth about everything that the ability to multitask was requisite for success, achievement and maintaining a general outward appearance of awesomeness as one walked, chewed gum, fixed their eyeliner, texted their friend about what someone said yesterday, and solved a Calculus problem all while driving to the grocery store.
And, now, apparently, that was all sorts of wrong.
Efficiency experts are now saying that while you can do several things at once, you cannot do several important things well at the same time. This has, of course, created a deep sense of concern in me at this very moment because I’m typing up this blog post while trying to get the kids to go to sleep. Interestingly, the kids are still awake, and this post is turning out to be a lot less clever than I thought it would.
Maybe those efficiency experts are on to something.
I would really like to shadow an “efficiency expert” for a day. I don’t think I could handle a job like that, though, because I have trouble compartmentalizing. In other words, no matter what I’m doing, everything I am is coming with me.
If I were an efficiency expert, I would feel like a total hypocrite if everything I did wasn’t totally efficient. Like, everything.
Where is the most efficient place for this toothbrush?
How much shampoo do I need to use in order to complete the most efficient iteration of washing my hair?
Should I take a shower before I use the toilet or after? Okay, that’s a no brainer… before.
Before.
But back to multitasking. I like this idea that multitasking is a myth, and I’m sort of working out in my brain the relationship between technology and how our propensity to engage in multitasking has been significantly impacted by it. Okay, fine, it’s in my brain because I read this article, but I guarantee you that sooner or later I would have come up with that relationship all by myself.
Thinking about the impact of technology on unchecked multitasking (if you didn’t read the article, think talking on your cell phone, with your laptop open to Facebook, Twitter, a blog post, e-mail, and, oh, yeah, the job you actually get PAID to do), it started to feel inescapable. Are we just going to be a civilization who does things only slightly well because we’re all too busy doing so many things?
We seem to be propagating this idea that we can be really great at every single little thing we decide to put our minds to, and, as a result, most of the stuff we produce seems to be a whole lot less than really great and quite often doesn’t even begin to touch the realm of “kind of” great.
Not everybody is Leonardo DaVinci, you know, drafting up schematics to flying machines in between painting the Mona Lisa and being the subject of one of the most overrated and slightly offensive mystery novel series of all time.
No, most of us are probably… Van Gogh.
The guy was a painter. He painted and he drew. That’s all he did. He tried to become a preacher man in the beginning of his life, but, even then, he was roaming the countryside sketching people. Most likely, and I may be projecting here, but he was telling himself that he could be more than one thing… do more than one thing. But, in the end, he was a painter. He painted. And, then, he killed himself, but that’s not important.
Incidentally, you probably know that nobody cared much about Van Gogh when he was alive.
Now he’s the father of modern art and all, but back then, nobody cared about Van Gogh.
He was just some painter.
I’ve written a couple articles on Work It Mom about NOT multitasking. I’m far more efficient when I do one thing at a time. But that might just be a good match for my obsessive tendencies.
@Miss Britt, I actually remember those articles… but, uh, I was too lazy to look them up.
Van Gogh did lots of other things besides painting. He contracted gonorrhea for one thing. Possibly syphilis a few years later too. I’m sure there was some other stuff he did as well.
@B.E. Earl, SEE… that’s what HAPPENS when you try to do more than one thing…
Van Gogh was one talented dude.
But crazy.
He CHOPPED OFF PART OF HIS EAR.
Still – I know what you’re saying.
@Sybil Law, See my response to Earl.
I know you wrote this one. lol
As I sit here with the TV on, my laptop open, texting my classmate about a lab we’re turning in tomorrow, and doing chem homework which is an attempt to cram for an online quiz for said test, I’m really liking the idea of one thing at a time. I need an efficiency expert to follow me around and hit me with a ruler like a nun every time my self-diagnosed ADD acts up.
@Andrea,
Class…not test. See, if I wasn’t multitasking, I probably would have proofed that BEFORE I sent it. That would have been more efficient.
@Andrea, If the TV weren’t on, all the rest of those things are kind of working on the same thing, though, so you’re not too bad off, actually.
i never understood why people thought they were good at multitasking. they are doing a whole bunch of shit half assed. to do most things well requires a little effort…and attention. don’t get me wrong, i half ass stuff all the time, but it doesn’t mean i should and doesn’t mean i am fooling myself that i am conquering the world.
the carnegie museum of pittsburgh has one of the last paintings van gogh did before he shot himself. come up and see it some time!
@hello haha narf, Well said, and yes, I need to come out to Pittsburgh soon. I think the family would enjoy a trip to PA, actually.
Ok, before I got promoted I was the queen of multi-tasking, now I just try to get one thing done at a damn time. I don’t know how I did it all then, but I know I can’t do it all now. Kind of feels like a failure…
@Becca, I know exactly what you mean… but, I don’t think it’s a failure, at all. I think it’s actually more evolved. It just feels uncomfortable because we’re conditioned to believe that it’s a failure, if that makes sense.
so if a whole bunch of people started doing things in a mediocre way, it would soon create a nation full of people putting out mediocre results/products/services, which could eventually result in shifting of power in world economies, which could result in the country who started the multi-tasking concept to rethink its ways, which could result in process improvements, which could end up with people doing one thing at a time with a lot of focus.
Then a couple of generations would go by and some ‘thinker’ would say, “hey, we need to start looking into becoming more efficient…”
@tariq, This right here? Is why I not only love you, but why I actually LIKE you.
I agree, although I would replace ‘important tasks’ with ‘difficult tasks.’ A slight dive into semantics, but I feel each task requires a certain measure of honest self-assessment that determines the amount of resources that will be required. With luck, the longer I do something the easier it will become (with less resources required). Muscle memory and nerve impulses carry me through some of the more critical moments of my week.
This post explains me and my routine for the last many years. I am in the process of trying to change, which is proving very difficult. I blame my “into my late 40′s” as part of it.
Organization without OCD is where I’d like to be. Glad I’m not alone.
I’ve actually been wondering whether technology is helping us or handicapping us. I don’t think it’s always good to multitask; sure, it comes in handy when you’re preparing a meal, but if you’re on an important call while preparing that meal, you’re bound to either burn something, not hear everything that’s being said, cut yourself, or give shitty, distracted responses. So no, multitasking is not always good. I do multitask a lot, because I’ve found that it sometimes keeps me from getting frustrated, but it doesn’t help keep me on task.
I multitask because most of the things I’m doing don’t require anyone’s full attention. Selling a client while replying to an email is easy because both of those things are rote actions, and I think that multitasking is best suited for rote actions.
If I was writing a book or even a blog post? I tend to ignore everything until that’s done, because I want to dedicate myself to it.