Maintaining Focus: All Hail “Uni-tasking” : The Cranking Widgets Blog

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Maintaining Focus: All Hail “Uni-tasking”

It seems like everywhere I turn, somebody is talking about how the ability to multi-task is an essential part of a person. Poke around on monster.com or dice.com to see what I mean; everybody out there can’t say enough good things about those who can effectively multi-task. Frankly, I don’t understand why this is the case…

As many of you now know, I write software for a living. It’s not the hardest job in the world, but I definitely use my head as much as (if not more than) my hands to do the work. Sometimes a really hairy problem will crop up and I’ll sit with my face buried in my hands just pouring over the details in my head until I get it straight. I try to imagine myself doing that and being expected to answer the phone and it makes me chuckle.

Now, I realize that many people have jobs that are very different from mine. They’re on the phone all day, writing and reading email, traveling to meet with clients, etc. To them, the ability to perform two tasks at once is necessary to perform their duties at work. My position is this:

If you’re doing more than one thing at once, neither thing is getting your best effort.

Now, you may disagree, but hear me out. How many news reports have you heard in the last few years about some group at some government institution deciding that it is unsafe for somebody to drive while talking on the phone? I know that if I’m talking to my wife about what’s for dinner or what I need to pick up at the store while I’m driving home, I have to ask her to repeat things several times (or I’m constantly getting honked at because I didn’t notice the light turn green). With two things fighting for your focus, only one is going to win. It’s a hyperbolic example, I know, but apropos I think. Seriously, pick any two activities (aside from walking and chewing gum) and tell me that, while doing them both simultaneously, you’d do either one with the same level of effectiveness as you would doing it alone. If you’re honest with yourself, I don’t think you’ll be able to make such a claim (at least, I know I can’t).

This is why I embrace what I call “uni-tasking” - doing only one thing at once. I know everybody gets interrupted and other things come up, etc. But the simple fact of the matter is that you’re in a better state to do something when it’s all you’re thinking about. Sounds quite a lot like something a GTDer would say, don’t you think? If our ultimate goal is the head that’s able to focus it’s energy on the task at hand, how can we pretend to be effective when handling more than one thing?

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