
Multitasking is the fastest way to mediocrity - twampss
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1589-multitasking-is-the-fastest-way-to-mediocrity
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ctingom
_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._

Time Magazine
[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1174696,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1174696,00.html)

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brandnewlow
Just got off a plane after a 6-hour flight.

I had 2-3 killer marketing/outreach ideas for my startup while sitting on the
plane.

Why?

No computer. No conversation. No newspapers. No magazines. No ipod.

Just me and a window aimed out at the clouds.

And in come the good ideas!

Same with driving. When I'm out of ideas I jump in the car and tool around
Chicago for an hour or two. Always does the trick.

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tptacek
It's spooky, the timing of this post for me.

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chris11
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.

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mapleoin
Multitasking is bad?

Aaron Swartz disagrees: <http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity>

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swombat
This is a far better article than the 37-signals one. Don't know why it was at
-1. It's excellent, do read it.

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froo
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.

<http://www.basecamphq.com/demos/time>

So I guess using that feature of basecamp is the fastest way to mediocrity.

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GHFigs
That does not follow. There is nothing about having a simple to do list or
tracking your hours that implies multitasking.

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froo
Well, you can add a little bit of time to one task, then add some more time to
another task as per the video, which is essentially for multitasking.

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amix
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.

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jodrellblank
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.

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mattjung
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.

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josefresco
What like blogging and writing software?

