Decades of research (not to mention common sense) indicate that the quality of one’s output and depth of thought deteriorate as one attends to ever more tasks.
Yeah, I read HN when I'm not really focused on work or other major tasks. So right now I have pandora open, google reader open, another blog open, and I have a to-do list in front of me. It not all that relaxing actually.
No offence intended to the author of this article (Jason), but this video that he authored talks about how basecamp does time tracking and to do lists, and how you can add additional time to tasks, which as far as I can tell is all for multitasking.
great article, although i don't think it quite counters the original.
multitasking is working on several things simultaneously. like watching TV while you program, or having a phone conversation while you play video games. swartz switches rapidly between tasks, which is different, and only when they are light tasks. he says he really benefits from blocks of undisturbed time for something like programming.
I feel the same way - even thought I have created a task manager to solve these kind of issues (Todoist).
The general problem for me is that I focus too much on one thing that I forget/postpone a lot of the other tasks and suddenly I have an inbox with 1000 messages where 100 of them need an answer.
I think organization and not taking too much work is the way to move forward. And I generally agree on that multitasking is the way to mediocrity and most productivity tips (e.g those from getting things done) recommend doing things in time blocks with full focus.
It's spooky how obvious this is, yet how difficult it is to avoid personally, and how difficult to get other people at work to acknowledge it.
Surely, surely, surely, creating an environment where your employees can work should be worth focusing on?
It's also spooky how poor software is at managing this, or helping me manage it.
I want a meta-program that controls all other programs and has a big list of projects, such that I click one button and my computer goes into {project X} mode, another and it goes to {project Y} mode. This could include changing browser windows, reopening text files, ssh connections, help documents, bringing back window configurations, folders, anything at all computer wide.
And, key, it would mean the browser could crash and all the other project browsers wouldn't. I could reboot and minimal things would cause problems.
It would be like virtual desktops, but better. Or, like OS X virtual desktops, but for Windows.
I think it simply depends on what you are doing. Multi-Tasking can be very inspiring and fostering creativity - sometimes you need to focus, sometimes you need to
stroll around different thoughts and activities.
Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1174696,00....