A lot of what I write on here is about me, and this post is a great example of that. While I know that true multitasking is a myth, it’s still something I sometimes spend too much time trying to streamline. In his book “Lost and Founder“, Rand Fishkin shares this:
David Strayer, professor at the University of Utah and coauthor of “Who Multi-Tasks and Why?,” puts it nicely: The people who multitask the most tend to be impulsive, sensation-seeking, overconfident of their multitasking abilities, and they tend to be less capable of multitasking.
The last line is the one that shocked me — those that multitask the most are the ones that are the worst at it. I’m not sure why that is, but I suspect it’s overconfidence. Those that multitask less often are likely to only do it in a short-term, focused way, but those that do it a lot just try to multitask with everything that they do and it doesn’t go well. If you have a different thought on that, please share in the comments.
Super dumb laptops
This came to the surface for me because of some recent conversations I’ve been having with Robert. He’s written a handful of excellent books (I encourage you to check out “The Story Cycle“) and his approach to focus is awesome.
Recently he’s been playing with some simple word processing computers to help him write. By using a device like the AlphaSmart 3000 (below), he’s able to write with literally zero distractions.
He can write for a while, and then pull the text onto his computer later for editing. While he’s writing, literally nothing will get in his way on that device. It’s similar to why I love the Kindle Scribe; an iPad has similar features, but distractions are a key feature on the iPad while the Scribe (and AlphaSmart) helps to keep things focused. You can’t multitask on those devices even if you wanted to.
I still try to attempt multitasking more than I should, but I’m slowly inching away from it and things are always improving as a result of that.
