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I just had this conversation with a potential employer yesterday. I have worked hard at not working so hard (seeing a therapist for life coaching) and I am "gua
by leetrout 4y ago
I just had this conversation with a potential employer yesterday. I have worked hard at not working so hard (seeing a therapist for life coaching) and I am "guarding my calm" with looking for a job.
- chiefalchemist 4y agoI see job postings with "must be able to multitask" and "high intensity environment" and I think the 80s called and it wants its 8 ball of coke back. It's common knowledge - or should be - multitasking is a productivity loss, not gain. And the last thing the world needs is another headless-chicken culture where working hard and frantic is confused with smart and efficient. Guard your calm...no one else will.
- starkd 4y agoThere will always be a need for some multi-taskers. Some are better at it than others. Not everyone is the same. Office secretaries/assistants/receptionists are the heartbeat of any business.
- flir 4y agoMy line manager multitasks so I don't have to.
- chiefalchemist 4y agoIt's still a productivity killer. Full stop. And unless the work is literally a matter of life or death, then excessive multitasking - to point you list it as a desired skill - is simply a sign of poor planning, poor priority setting, and so on. The job ad might as well say, "Must enjoy working at a shit show, or at least has had a life-long dream of working at a circus."
- starkd 4y agoahhh, but the planning and priority setting is a part of the multi-tasking. No one said multi-tasking must be a circus. That said, I am terrible at multi-tasking. But we really do need to do some to some degree.
- antisthenes 4y agoYou can't multitask deep work.
- Gud 4y agoSo what? Must work is not deep work.
- chiefalchemist 4y agoWell, it's not (read: can't be)...if you're always multitasking. Multitasking from the brain's POV is intensive and a form of distraction. If it's work, then chances are some level of focus and attentiveness is required. Deep or not, work is work. And focusing the brain to be not-what-it's-wired-to-be is a proven fool's errand.
- tmountain 4y agoWhat are some strategies for guarding your calm that have worked for the HN crowd?
- grugagag 4y agoWith the risk of being fired, pushing back and saying no if your plate is full is an okay stategy. I think the stated risk is worth it
- kevinventullo 4y agohttp://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
- collyw 4y agoI am so glad the trend of bragging about multitasking from a decade or two ago has died out. I can't think of a bigger productivity killer that constantly context switching. I just quit a job and a lot of it was down to that, the system was so buggy that I could never focus for long before something broke and needed looking at.
- nradov 4y agoWe all know that multitasking reduces productivity, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it's better to optimize for low latency instead of high throughput.
- ludston 4y agoTrue, but you've mixed up the wording. Throughput is the word for speed at which the team delivers complete things, so you could say, "Sometimes optimising for low latency will cause higher throughput than optimising for personal efficiency."
- taneq 4y agoAlso sometimes your work is frequently stalled waiting on outside inputs (documentation reviews, approvals, client decisions etc.) If so you can’t just sit around waiting for the thing, you need to do something productive in the meantime.
- aikiplayer 4y ago"the 80s called and it wants its 8 ball of coke back." This phrase made me laugh out loud - literally. Thanks for this! Also, this thread is spot on.