Multi-tasking - or what?
'Must have ability to multi-task'. Remember seeing that in job descriptions a while ago? It seems to have disappeared - at least it's not in the job descriptions I've seen recently. I think to a large extent people are simply expected to multi-task these days.
What does multi-tasking really mean? Are there levels of multi-tasking? Is juggling projects considered a level of multi-tasking? There's checking email while on a conference call - heck, everyone does that, c'mon, admit it - but then there's 'continuous partial attention', now being touted as a admirable quality in the younger generation. This means, at a minimum, listening to your iPod while you text your friend, watch TV and do your homework.
Linda Stone, who seems to have coined the phrase in 1997 while working at Microsoft, states that continuous partial attention is not the same as multi-tasking: 'that's about trying to accomplish several things at once. With continuous partial attention, we're scanning incoming alerts for the one best thing to seize upon'.
I guess I would argue that there are times when it's not possible to separate the two. When I'm deep into research, for example, I love listening to music, but I'm also constantly switching over to and monitoring email. It's the best of both worlds: I'll research for a while, then check email quickly for anything new coming in, switch over for a half-minute and really enjoy a passage I'm listening to, and then I'll delve back into full concentration on the research. When I'm multi-tasking at my highest level, it's like dancing - it's effortlessly coordinated and totally engaging.
It's like a really well-made movie - your focus can change from the music to the characters to the dialogue to the color to the cinematography. None of this change of focus takes away from the movie at all, but enhances it all the way around.
I realize I'm not bringing much new to the conversation. Quite a few folks have blogged about this topic. Perspectives on this range from considering this an evolution to considering it a syndrome. As I've described it above, I would almost call it 'continually shifting engagement'. That sounds a lot better than 'partial attention', doesn't it?
But I've also seen the people (myself included) who can't stop checking email, who talk on their cell phone while playing (well, partially playing) with their children, who interrupt a perfectly good dinner conversation with a phone call or a quick BlackBerry email.
I do believe there is an art to attention and concentration. It takes practice and discipline. It's not unlike meditation; in fact, all this stimuli coming into my attention surely feeds and hypes up my 'monkey mind' that disrupts my limited attempts at meditation. I sometimes wonder why I need all these things streaming in for my attention, what it is I think I'm getting from it, what need it fulfills for me. Does it make me feel needed? Does it make me feel productive? Do I look busy?
Or am I just squandering some good concentration?
In any case, it's been a while since I posted, so I'm glad I did - I managed to listen to and weed out some of my podcasts while I was writing the post.
