Amusingly, it’s now apparently OK to turn off the swirling tornado of notifications, alerts, bings and (bleeping) beeps that seem to define the working day for so many of us.
We can now move on to actually doing things until complete – one thing at a time – clear in the knowledge that its OK because it’s a trend:
via Singletasking: The Next Trend in Web Working?.
We freelance web workers multitask like it was going out of style. Question is, is it actually going out of style? Some people think so, and they look to singletasking as the next trend in how we work.
Singletasking is just what it sounds like: approaching and tackling one task at a time, sequentially, instead of trying to do a whole bunch of things at once, as has become de rigeur in our modern multitasking age. If you’re like me, the thought is probably at least a little refreshing, and maybe more than a little appealing right off the bat.
The principle is sound. Take on one task at a time, and don’t begin another until the one you’ve already started is complete. It sounds simple, but you know as well as I do that actually implementing that kind of thing in real life will take a lot more effort than you might first think. For one, it means ignoring any urge to procrastinate, and making sure that you prioritize very carefully in advance, lest you realize too late that what you thought was most urgent actually could’ve taken a back seat to something else.
I’ve got nothing against multitasking, except, of course, that it tends to get in the way of doing good work.
That’s why I tend to post here in spurts (when I’m busy, I’m busy), and why I find myself writing more and more using “clean screen” writing tools.
It’s also why the racy new notification system in Unbuntu Linux is mostly turned off.
I’ve got words to write and thinking to do, and if it’s one thing I’ve learned about twitter, Facebook, chat and email, it’s that the person on the other end isn’t doing to do that thinking for me.
Keep writing (with as few distractions as possible), Tom Chandler.
