Harmonious Chaos

Compulsive Multitasking, or: Where has my day gone?

Hm, my mind is kind of wandering. Maybe I’ll check up on reddit. Hey cool, some new links. I’ll just open all of them in tabs and read them, making sure to skim or scan through the comments sections for any insightful analysis or funny jokes.

Alright, I’m done with that. Still don’t really want to focus. Maybe I’ll take a quick glance at my Facebook news feed. Nothing new there. What to do now? Nothing new is going to be on reddit yet.

Hey, when did it get to be 1 AM?

I’m sure I’m not the only person who tries to hold ten ideas in his head and work on as many tasks simultaneously as a matter of habit, as if jumping around from idea platform to idea platform will keep my mind from falling into the infinite idea void. As I write this post, I have three windows open that I’m actively paying attention to: this browser window, an instant messenger window (with three tabs), and an ssh session in which I am on an IRC channel. That’s if you don’t count iTunes, which really should count for half a window at least.

When I’m at school, I hate working alone in my room. It’s partially wanting to socialize more, but I feel that this urge to multitask factors into it as well. Multiple people remarked last year that they had never seen me doing work, probably on the assumption that the time I spent in public lounges was not spent doing work (despite staring at a computer screen much of the time).

(Aside: The fact that this lack of focus happens with people in person and not just the Internet means this isn’t a rant about these “newfangled gadgets”. Technophobes can now stop readying their comments.)

Whether the multitasking is digitally or socially assisted, it means that tasks that should take n hours now take kn hours, for some nontrivial constant k. It’s not even restricted to tasks that I dislike. The other day I was reading a book on my Kindle—which is amazing and excellent and great, by the way—and I felt the urge to pull out my iPhone and check my e-mail or maybe Facebook. This happened while I was having a pretty enjoyable time reading a book that I found interesting. Even writing this post took me about a week to finally get around to doing.

In general, I remain functional despite my ability to focus. My work gets done, I get some sleep, and in the end everything is okay. Maybe bouncing around between ideas so quickly even helps me come up with creative new ones, but that’s probably just a weak rationalization. Sometimes, I feel like I’m missing out on something by not sitting down and doing only one (or maybe two) things at once. Perhaps if I spent more time alone in my room doing work, I’d have more real free time to socialize, during which I wouldn’t have to be constantly doing work. However, if doing everything I need to do takes too long and I work only in my room, I could suddenly find myself with no social interaction at all, which isn’t acceptable to me. I’m tempted to try it out for at least a week or so this term; I’ll report back if I do.

Anyway, this post is more of a musing than an attempt at a coherent solution, because I don’t really know what a good solution looks like. Maybe you do? You should let me know.

Expect the next post to be a little more technically oriented, as I slowly attempt to diversify from autobiography.