life, the universe & everything
I haven’t blogged in a quite a long time (20 days) due to being overwhelmed with life. And funny enough, I just recently found out that my desire to multitask in order to combat the overflow of life activities might actually make me less efficient. I’m not sure that I believe that entirely, but it is something to think about (and apparently think about alone, not in conjunction with driving or blogging or anything like that).
So here is a short list of what life activities have been juggling in the past 20 days:
1. Halloween
Upon returning from my Organic trip to LA, we had to plunge head first into decorating the house and building our costumes for our Strickland 2nd Annual Halloween Bash. Many many hours and a few days later, our house was transformed (pictures here). We built a serial killer clown complete with wanted photos and two crime scenes in our showers (victims strangled via balloon animal). I tackled double the amount of tombstones this year so that we could have a proper graveyard. Lon built the most terrifying demon baby and seance room imaginable. All in all a success.
2. Eurotrip
Tom and I are living in about a week for an 18 day Eurotrip. We are going to be doing some high tech documentation of the trip that I will explain in a farewell post before I go (notice the Twitter feed I’ve added to the side of the page). In addition, we’ve been figuring out new ways to make our trip itself be more tech enhanced. This includes using Google My Maps in combination with a GPX export tool and a GPX editing tool to upload wineries, restaurants, and attractions I’ve researched to our Garmin device, complete with descriptions and photos I collected from the internet. Fun!!
3. Web 3.0
Upon returning from LA, I gave a presentation of my Web 3.0 deck to the Organic Detroit creative team. I was then asked by Chad Stoller, Executive Director of Emerging Platforms, to go on a road show with my presentation to the other Organic offices in December. Since I’m going to be out for a good chunk of November, I’ve been trying to polish my deck, via his great recommendations, to include some more tangible and easy to imagine examples of what Web 3.0 could be. I’ve been having a lot of fun with Photoshop as of late to create the following fancier interfaces to some already prominent Web 3.0 front runners:
Things are moving quickly. I probably will only have time to post one more blog before I leave. But when I return (refreshed and reinvigorated), I will have a whole slew of experiences, thoughts, and consumptions that I will be itching to share. More on how I plan on sharing those next post…
technorati tags: garmin nuvi, social search, web 3.0, joost, wink
You must be logged in to post a comment.
RECENT WINES
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:14 pm
The new look at multitasking seems over-simplified. Too too simple. I believe it depends on the individual and the environment(s). If I only did one task at a time in my realm I’d perhaps complete it 100% but then time is lost on other tasks which are crying out to stay on a tight schedule. Also, not all tasks can be completed full-focus to 100% and are rather done piece by piece or with stops and starts. My conclusion is that given individuals who can fully-focus all attention to one task and their environments allow this focus to one task of many tasks, then great. In other situations, the dynamic movement between tasks with multi-focus can accomplish more when all tasks are considered over time. This can also create pathways between brain cells which would never be simultaneously activited if only one task is going on. Personally, I work more ‘efficiently’ running several channels, but I also realize that my skill has evolved as I work and play. Multitasking is not for everyone. It is, however, for and preferred by others. The multitasking no-no is based on black and white. I exist in a world of varying shades of gray. If we become too efficient and ordered and without flaw in our processes, then our species will cease to evolve (my opinion). We need to make mistakes and be enlightened by accidental discoveries. The trick is to be efficient and allow our inefficiencies to push us to be better. I suppose I am a hopeless multi-tasker.
November 4th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I believe that multitasking is a myth - but an extremely seductive one. I think it merely gives the illusion of completing more. You do move forward on multiple fronts, but your progress, in my opinion and an increasing amount of others as well, isn’t as much as you might think and the quality of work can suffer as well. I think fear is a big motivator in multitasking. People are busy and they think that if they aren’t in constant motion about a number of things then they are just letting themselves get buried.
There’s a book that came out last year entitled “Organized for Success: Top Executives and CEOs Reveal the Organizing Principles That Helped Them Reach the Top”. In the author’s research one of the most surprising findings was that almost to a person, successful people don’t multi-task, quite the opposite: they have a strong ability to focus rigorously on the task at hand. It may seem as if they multi-task but only because they go from task to task quickly. In fact, Bill Gates won’t even read a magazine or book while he’s riding the exercise bike because he wants to focus on keeping his breathing and heart rate where it should be for the activity.
I think that if you focus your attention on tasks that are hot you get things done that need to be done and will be seen as a person who can prioritize and handle their workload.