“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than I was and began diverting all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.”
I think everyone knows J.K. Rowling for the Harry Potter series of novels that became the Harry Potter series of movies. She’s been able to enjoy quite a bit of success with her tale of the boy wizard, but this wasn’t always the case.
From what I recall from one of her interviews, Rowling said that she once had to rely on government subsidies to survive. It goes to show you that anyone has an opportunity at overwhelming success. It may take some help, it may take some luck, but the opportunity is there.
With the quote above, J.K. Rowling really reminds us of the problem with multitasking. We think that we are being more productive and getting more done when we are multitasking, but we just end up with a series of half-finished projects that never got our full attention. Rowling decided to cast aside everything else that “didn’t matter” and focus her efforts solely on writing and publishing her Harry Potter books. And I think you’d agree that everything has worked out quite well for her.
So, what does this mean about our own goals, endeavors and ambitions? In an ideal world, we would be able to eliminate all of those distractions and not worry about all of the “inessential” things in our lives. We would be able to focus our energy completely on “the only work that mattered” and not only get it done, but get it done to the utmost of our ability. After all, we are remembered for what we accomplish and not for what we attempt (or think about attempting).
Real life duties and obligations can get in the way. We have bills to pay and mouths to feed. These responsibilities are essential to our lives and thus cannot be ignored. We can ignore some of the superfluous fluff that lays on top of all that though. If you can help it, stop dividing your attention side projects and really buckle down on the one that you care the most about. There is definitely merit to single-tasking.
But this lesson extends well beyond just our professional exploits. I think we could all benefit from clearing out the clutter, eliminating the inessential, and really focusing on what matters most to us. Don’t sweat the small stuff… unless that small stuff can lead you to become an international best-selling author.
My boss always tells me we are remembered from our last interaction with someone. I would tend to agree, it’s the whole of what we do as much as it is “what have you done for me lately”.
I’m fairly sure there have been studies done that show we get much less efficient end results when multitasking, no matter how good you think you may be at it.
It’s why the trend towards fullscreen apps is great for productivity!
Actually dual monitors are very effective for productivity. If I need to look at two documents for comparison or I am writing something that I need to be looking at Excel data for that paper.
There are other reasons such as having my email open on one monitor, being able to see my calendar and tasks at a glance or reply to something in an instant instead of waiting.
Absolutely true, dual screens are AMAZING at productivity, but they do little to alleviate the problem of distractions from other applications. That’s the advantage of fullscreen apps in OS X Lion and Windows 8. As you mention being able to see an email immediately is a great advantage of dual monitors. But you could also look at it as a disadvantage, because it distracts you from whatever you are already doing. It really depends on you personally, what exactly it is you’re already doing, and what the distractions are likely to be. If you’re writing a report for a client and you receive an email from said client that has pertinent information, that’s obviously important. If you’re working on a long-form written piece and receive an email from a family member, that’s an unwanted distraction that it would be better if you could deal with it later.
On another note, personally, I’m a huge fan of using two computers simultaneously, rather than dual monitors running off of one computer, because it allows for fullscreen programmes to run exactly as you would expect they would (although I mainly use it for leisure, not productivity: for example I’ll watch a TV show or movie on one, while playing a fullscreen game on the other).