So my buddy Stefan (see previous post on paper editing) has put his new book out. For a guy who learned english from friends episodes, I’m amazed that he can keep an English blog running. He’s got a new book out and guess what, he wants you to have a free copy. Here is a small snippet of some of the things you’ll learn.
How multitasking can actually be a good thing
This title is probably against everything you’ve read the last couple of years. Multitasking can’t be good, focus is the way you should work. Focussing on one thing at the time is the mantra on a lot of blogs, myself included, hackcollege included and all the other big blogs also. But I believe you probably could implement multitasking, in a good way.
Why even bother, my system works
It does. I’m convinced your system for focus works. But does it feel right? Do you feel right about shutting everything off, about getting at a place where nobody else is, about leaving your friends, just for the sake of focus? I don’t think so. And during your focus session, are you thinking about twitter, about texting someone about watching youtube? The point I try to make is that this form of productivity doesn’t bring you any comfort, it only exhausts you. You will feel tired, and after a big focus session, you can’t do anything but the things (i.e. twitter, facebook and texting) you tried to avoid during your focus session.
How should multitasking work?
You need to divide your tasks into projects. For me, there is ’studying’, ‘blogging’ and ‘fun’. Now get all your tasks and put them into different projects. Twitter would be in the ‘blogging’ project, instant messenger in ‘fun’ and reading in ’studying’.
Now, do multiple tasks at the same time. For instant: When you are writing an article for your blog, keep your twitter on, ask your followers questions, ask for quotes, things like that. Listen to music, make blogging a fun thing to do. When you are studying, read, but also talk to friends about the stuff you have to study. Don’t exclude yourself, just because you want to do one task at the time, try to be among friends. Study at the bar and have fun while you are studying.
Your tasks will be fun again
Try it out. You will have the idea that the tasks you have to do aren’t that big because of the hard focus you need, but you can do it with more fun. Studying with instant messenger on to answer questions (and ask them) from friends, blogging with music, twitter and RSS feeds. Maybe you won’t like it. Maybe you will. There is only one way you can find out!
Multitasking isn’t always a dirty word, you just need to experiment with it.
Stefan Knapen is a medical student in the Netherlands and blogs at StudySuccessful.com about how to study. He just wrote a free ebook on motivation called Nine ways to get motivated for college, you can download it now for free!
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Multitasking is good but it does not come naturally. Like every thing else practice makes best. In order to be a good multitasking one has to start handling tasks in groups.
It actually can be really good, if we can do many thing and still have the focused. I do not agree with the idea that multitasking is not good, except that if you are not good at it do not do it.