Partial Attention

May 27th, 2007 | Productivity

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This was originally published on 6 April 2006

It seems to me that we are all becoming terribly distracted. I have to make a concerted effort not to multitask. And I’m not the only one who has noticed, apparently.

I am plugged in constantly. I have my phone with me almost all the time, and my PDA as well (yes, it has a wireless card). I work with computers, and usually I have at least four applications running at any given time: instant messenger, email, my programming environment, and a web browser.

And I’ve made a very important discovery about myself.

I do better work when only doing one thing at a time.

I spent Tuesday evening at the library. It was my “night out” and I decided I wanted to get some writing done, as well as finish the work I needed to do for my volunteer position. Instead of going to the bookstore with all the distractions of spending money on books, or to the coffee shop with all the distractions of spending money on food/drink, I packed up my laptop and went to the library. I settled into a cubicle, unpacked the laptop, plugged in my MP3 player, and…

…proceeded to have some of the most productive non-work time I’ve had in months.

The only thing I can figure out is that I wasn’t distracted by anything. There was no Internet access, so no email or instant messenging to interrupt me. It was quiet, there was no one I knew around and I was able to work.

I had thought that the best way for me to write was longhand. Now I understand that I can write effectively at the computer, as long as the Internet is turned off.

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