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Multitasking doesn't exist, it's just jumping from one task to another. I run operations/tech side of things at the company I work for. Over the last month, the

Multitasking doesn't exist, it's just jumping from one task to another. I run operations/tech side of things at the company I work for. Over the last month, there were a lot things going on,which just ended up being priority on top of priority(and they were not made up 'important' things). At some point I looked at my inbox and I had 500 unread emails with no light at the end of the tunnel,because in the morning I have to take this 45 min call with some moaning customer,who wants to speak to the manager, shortly after I have to deal with some compliance bs,while in the afternoon I somehow need to push some code changes to production.So not much time left to read emails.So one day,I just marked them all to 'read' and moved to archived.The inbox was empty. What happened? Nothing. Just a hard reset on my inbox.So now I'm less behind on some stuff and the rest can go to hell,or send me an email again.

onemoresoop 7y ago
Multitasking is what prevents us from working on a problem uninterrupted. If you are not allowed to concentrate on a problem because another task has higher priority you are doing multitasking. You said it yourself, multitasking is jumping from one task to another, and I may add the word unfinished before task.
- GrumpyNl 7y ago
  Its all about focus and dedication. That's hard to spread over several subjects.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  Absolutely agree. Yesterday my colleague and I had to work on something with very hard deadline.I emailed my team explaining that we won't be available for calls,emails or anything else. In just 4-5 hours I've done more than it would otherwise have taken me a few days to complete.There were lots of missed calls though:)
- ogn3rd 7y ago
  wouldn't it be easier to describe multi-tasking as context switching?
  - bpyne 7y ago
    What we call multitasking is usually task switching, according to an article I read after a similar discussion on HN. The dividing line has something to do with only one task at a time being able to use an area of the brain. As long as one of the tasks doesn't use that area, you can multitask. Otherwise, you can physically only task switch.
noir_lord 7y ago
That sounds familiar. I'm supposed to be rewriting a critical part of the main system, while modernising it and preparing to roll out new features (and fixing the constant serious and critical bugs that crop up every couple of days), while managing the initial planning for the company who fucked up the current one to start working on another fucked up one (don't ask, I lost that fight) while dealing with user issues, GDPR compliance, systems administration (still have servers on Debian 7 with PHP5) and on and on it goes. It's part of the reason why when I'm off in a week or so I'm going to mull over whether it's simply time to leave, I want to work on a team again where it doesn't all fall on me. Seems stupid to do all the above for the same money as a regular developer on a normal team can get.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  Sounds like a situation that can only be drowned in many,many,and I mean many, pints of beer...
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    If I could drink I would but I can’t for medical reasons.
ogn3rd 7y ago
I've done the same thing multiple times. Used to get 1500 email a day and 5000 over a weekend. There's really not much other option. We need email 2.0, desperately.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  Email 2.0 or 3.0 won't help. Nowadays we have things like Slack,which is the same crap,only requires immediate attention. One of the main problems,in my opinion,is people's obsession with notification. Just yesterday I had a meeting,where my colleague said he's happy to get additional 200-300 emails/month instead of a daily report with the same info. The other category are the people who Cc'ing everyone on everything.When I see an email with 5-8 people Cc'ed,it makes me sick.There are situations,where it makes sense but in general it's just 'it won't make any harm if I'll CC him as well' kimd of thing.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    There was a recent HN submission about how distributed message queues are a bad design from history, with a lot of problems, and request/response is much better. This calls to me as a problem with email - we dump information into email and then expect a response, while trying to forget about the email. Then with no response, the system breaks down - we have no clue what happened; do we requeue the email? Wait more? Ask if the email system is down? Chase every email with a phonecall? We need some replacement (like a ticketing system, for more than just tickets) for tracking work, and where the system will chase it up until it's done - or close it once it's no longer needed. For at least part of things, a centralised work queue that isn't duplicated in inboxes and relying on individual's organizational skills.

onemoresoop 7y ago

Multitasking is what prevents us from working on a problem uninterrupted. If you are not allowed to concentrate on a problem because another task has higher priority you are doing multitasking. You said it yourself, multitasking is jumping from one task to another, and I may add the word unfinished before task.

GrumpyNl 7y ago
Its all about focus and dedication. That's hard to spread over several subjects.
cosmodisk 7y ago
Absolutely agree. Yesterday my colleague and I had to work on something with very hard deadline.I emailed my team explaining that we won't be available for calls,emails or anything else. In just 4-5 hours I've done more than it would otherwise have taken me a few days to complete.There were lots of missed calls though:)
ogn3rd 7y ago
wouldn't it be easier to describe multi-tasking as context switching?
- bpyne 7y ago
  What we call multitasking is usually task switching, according to an article I read after a similar discussion on HN. The dividing line has something to do with only one task at a time being able to use an area of the brain. As long as one of the tasks doesn't use that area, you can multitask. Otherwise, you can physically only task switch.

noir_lord 7y ago

That sounds familiar. I'm supposed to be rewriting a critical part of the main system, while modernising it and preparing to roll out new features (and fixing the constant serious and critical bugs that crop up every couple of days), while managing the initial planning for the company who fucked up the current one to start working on another fucked up one (don't ask, I lost that fight) while dealing with user issues, GDPR compliance, systems administration (still have servers on Debian 7 with PHP5) and on and on it goes. It's part of the reason why when I'm off in a week or so I'm going to mull over whether it's simply time to leave, I want to work on a team again where it doesn't all fall on me. Seems stupid to do all the above for the same money as a regular developer on a normal team can get.

cosmodisk 7y ago
Sounds like a situation that can only be drowned in many,many,and I mean many, pints of beer...
- noir_lord 7y ago
  If I could drink I would but I can’t for medical reasons.

ogn3rd 7y ago

I've done the same thing multiple times. Used to get 1500 email a day and 5000 over a weekend. There's really not much other option. We need email 2.0, desperately.

cosmodisk 7y ago
Email 2.0 or 3.0 won't help. Nowadays we have things like Slack,which is the same crap,only requires immediate attention. One of the main problems,in my opinion,is people's obsession with notification. Just yesterday I had a meeting,where my colleague said he's happy to get additional 200-300 emails/month instead of a daily report with the same info. The other category are the people who Cc'ing everyone on everything.When I see an email with 5-8 people Cc'ed,it makes me sick.There are situations,where it makes sense but in general it's just 'it won't make any harm if I'll CC him as well' kimd of thing.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  There was a recent HN submission about how distributed message queues are a bad design from history, with a lot of problems, and request/response is much better. This calls to me as a problem with email - we dump information into email and then expect a response, while trying to forget about the email. Then with no response, the system breaks down - we have no clue what happened; do we requeue the email? Wait more? Ask if the email system is down? Chase every email with a phonecall? We need some replacement (like a ticketing system, for more than just tickets) for tracking work, and where the system will chase it up until it's done - or close it once it's no longer needed. For at least part of things, a centralised work queue that isn't duplicated in inboxes and relying on individual's organizational skills.