Fascinating read in the New York Times that text-messaging can be dangerous because some people can get distracted if they do it while driving or walking down the street.
It’s amazing people think they can do a variety of things at the same time rather than focusing on the task at hand. (Apologies for the dripping sarcasm).
The amazing thing about multi-tasking phenomena is most people think can they pull it off without skipping a beat. The reality is few of us can successfully pull it off, which means we end up doing too many things in a mediocre or half-assed way.
For something completely different, try focusing on doing one thing. The rules are you have to focus for an extended period of time, and avoid being distracted by e-mail, Twitter, another task you need to do, or the phone. See if it makes a difference in how well you do something.
Another offshoot of multi-taskism is how many people within the digerati feel the need to be everywhere and anywhere. Rafe Needleman talked about “Personal Syndication Overload”, which involves the challenge of trying to manage all your online activity – blogging, Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, Friendfeed, etc.
The first problem is Rafe needs to recognize he can’t be everywhere unless he spends the bulk of his time managing his digital footprint instead of focusing on writing for CNet.
Part of the problem is people think they need to be everywhere as opposed to focusing on being a few places well. You end up stretching yourself too thin, which means rather than being an engaged and involved member of a community, you’re here, there and everywhere without being somewhere.
This digital fact of life means I focus most of my time and energy on two vehicles: my blog and Twitter.
My blog is where I write, communicate and share ideas. Twitter is where I highlight and promote ideas, news and events, and seek interesting ideas, ideas, blog posts and answer to questions.
It’s all I can do to effectively manage blogging and Twitter, which means places such as FriendFeed, Facebook, Jaiku, etc. get little or no digital love.
It’s not that I’m not a multi-tasker because, in some respects, I’m as bad as everyone else. But being focused has become a personal challenge and mantra if I want any chance of maintaining my digital sanity.
Technorati Tags: multi-tasking
2 Comments
Mark,
I definitely get the “Personal Syndication Overload”. The easy solution I think is a tool which allows you to craft one message and send it out over multiple platforms.
HelloTxt definitely fits that bill. I enter one message and it gets broadcast to Twitter, Pownce, Facebook and as many others as you belong to from their extensive list. HelloTxt is ideal if I just want to broadcast, but if I want to engage in a conversation then I need to use each platform individually, which leads to the overload.
Fifteen years past the first use of “digerati” and I still laugh every time I see that word.