No Multitasking Allowed
Keeping things simple
I often appear to outsiders (everyone not me) as if I multitask, but I don’t. It doesn’t work for me. I do, however, like to pick a task, work on it (exclusively) until I’ve taken it as far as I can, then work on something else.
When computers were simpler (and so was life), we called that way of handling a list of chores “multithreading.” Executing a task requires following a thread. It ran until a task with a higher priority comes long, which would interrupt it. Then, the CPU stores the variables the task is using on a stack and the thread stops. The computer executes the higher-priority task, then returns, reloading the variables.
Parallel processing changed that. It meant that a computer could juggle two improbable tasks simultaneously (more or less. Sometimes resources had to be shared.)
I can multithread up to a point but I can’t multitask. I hear people hold it up as an ideal, but frankly, I’m not tempted. Increasingly, I am consciously working to reduce the number of tasks I take on. Of course, you never get it down to one, so I am still often putting variables on a stack and changing to another thread.
Looking around me, I wonder about the advocates of multitasking… do they really multitask (do more than one thing at once) or is it high-speed multithreading? (We word people agonize over things like that). And why, I wonder, would you want to multitask? I doubt the results are better. I don’t think keeping multiple goals in the air it lets you enjoy what you are doing as much. I’m not sure it produces quality results.
Part of the reason I think about this is that I was taught that when things get hectic, it was time to calm your mind. When I studied Aikido we were taught that the most important thing in dealing with multiple opponents was to calm your mind, and deal with one at a time.
Originally, as anyone who ever watched The Jetsons can tell you, technology was intended to make life simpler, so humans could focus on important things (bowling, in the case of George Jetson). Now we are moving into an era of techno-feudalism, where the tech is used to control us. To that end, the tech companies and government want us addicted to it. When attention spans collapse from minutes to seconds, who has the patience to overthrow anything? I think multitasking is wrong-headed attempt to adapt to that world… a fatal way. You become enmeshed in the frenetic world that is being sold to us.
I’m in the process of unsubscribing to things wherever possible (not being able to own anything is a basic tool of technofeudalism… they own the means of everything, not just production, but you can rent it.) I’m looking at simpler, if more time-intensive ways of doing things. And not just in my writing. I am picking ways of working that force me to be conscious about the choices I’m making.
You can’t do that if you are juggling many things at once.