Friday, January 29, 2010

Multitasking

During my day I will occasionally look at Yahoo! for news and whatever is on the home page. I have read a few articles lately that debunk (is that the word I want?) the notion of multitasking. The articles all seem to say the same thing. Productivity drops, meaning we get less done when we are multitasking than if we just concentrated on one thing at time. This because we are not giving our full attention to the task at hand.
As I think more about this I wish I knew the gender of the authors. It seems to me that women think that they are better multitaskers than men. This statement is not anyway meant to be derogatory. I actually believe that generally speaking that women do better at multitasking than men. By the way, the statements above are not saying that if women are better multitaskers that they are getting less done. I think women are better multitaskers and therefore get more done.
One of the articles stated that even when we think we are multitasking we in fact are not.
The idea that I have come away with is to focus on the task at hand. Do the one thing and do it well. Then move on to the next thing.
I have never claimed to be a mutlitasker. I am okay with that. However, if I could plan my time to say okay I will work on this project for an hour and then I will work on this project for 30 minutes, etc. I would accomplish a lot. But I feel that I have to do the entire project in one sitting and can't move on until it's complete. (Bartley think Baby Steps; book by Dr. Leo Marvin, in the movie What About Bob?)My actual problem is not making the plan it's doing the plan when the time comes (I think I maybe confessing too much here. My bishop doesn't know about this blog, so I can't really confess I guess).
One last confession. I am leaving to go on a cruise in less than 36 hours and I have not packed a thing. Nor have many things been packed for the children that are being farmed out to relatives.
Love you all!!!!

OLD Man

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