Two things at a time - mike's web log/comments

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June 25, 2009 | Two things at a time | 1581 hit(s)

Have I ever recounted my Theory of Two Things? The theory is this: there are many things to attend to in one's life, but I can only attend to two things at a time. For example, here are the sorts of things that are part of my life:

family
work
friends
reading
home improvement
guitar
blogging
exercising
taking classes
teaching classes

And etc. Per my theory, I can only really be putting serious energy into two of these at a time. So, if work is intense and I'm practicing guitar diligently, I'm ignoring family and blogging. If we're doing family things and I'm working on some house project or other, work and guitar and all the rest get short shrift. I can prep to teach a class and work, or I can work and have a busy social life, or I can work out regularly and do home improvement, or I can blog regularly and read a lot, or ... anyway, you get the idea.

Clearly there are people who can handle three or four or more of these types of things concurrently. (I seem to work with a lot of people like that.) But one has to know oneself, no? And I have to recognize, after long experience, that taking on some attention-sucking task means I have to jettison something else, until the total count of tasks is, like, two.

What's your limit for number of concurrent tasks?

JaAG 26 Jun 09 - 3:15 PM

Sadly it can be a little as one (jamming in a combo) or two (driving and drinking coffee), but rarely three without some aspect suffering (what'd you say dear?). ;o)

ar-kay-tee 02 Jul 09 - 10:23 PM

Awhile back, I saw David Sedaris at Benaroya Hall. He had a friend who related something similar, comparing it to a stove and saying that you could only have two of the four burners going at one time before burning out. I believe the four items were family, friends, work, and health. It was kind of an apt thought for me at the time.

Grayson 10 Jul 09 - 4:04 PM

I use the corrolary when traveling: You should plan to do a maximum of two things per day when traveling. That includes museums, walking, touring, dining, laying around, etc. I would always get in trouble when I tried to cram too much into the day. If you accomplish more than two, great. Usually you can get to two things, so you always end up doing everything on your list if you have only two things. It's amazing how sane traveling got when I settled on my own theory of two.

mike 10 Jul 09 - 4:16 PM

@Grayson, that's an excellent plan. I did at some point (when traveling with children, in fact) learn that it's ok, dammit, to just spend an hour or two in a museum. No one is checking that you're getting your money's worth or that you're extracting the maximum possible amount of culture from every opportunity.

Combine that with a schedule for a civilized person -- ie, two things -- and that vacation might actually turn out to be relaxing. :-)

Lon 25 Jul 09 - 2:35 PM

I listened to a podcast recently that claimed there was no multi-tasking. We never really do two things at once, we compress one or more of the things.

I wish I remember which podcast it was. Perhaps it was "60 Second Psych". I was driving at the time, and thinking about what I was going to have for lunch.

mike 26 Jul 09 - 1:34 AM

I totally agree on the (non-)multi-tasking stuff -- as with computer multi-tasking, what appears to be simultaneous is a) not and b) subject to substantial overhead.

My two-things theory, as it pertains to me, is about overall life focus. It seems to require a certain amount of mental and perhaps emotional energy for me to get involved with a project, say -- music lessons, a home-improvement project, motorcycle class, whatever. I can sustain about two such areas of activity at a time, for however many days or weeks they run. For example, I've really let guitar slide while I've worked on the shed, and of course, when it's crunch time at work, not much else gets accomplished. Once I finish the shed, it will be like space will have opened up again and I can fill that space with another activity. (Or of course I can lose interest in the shed altogether while I take up something else again. Hopefully not.)

I think there are people who can organize their time and focus to be able to bring multiple things forward at more-or-less the same time (every week, say) -- work, go to the gym, take a Spanish class, spend time with the family, whatever -- and give each activity the attention it deserves. That ain't me, tho. And it's not getting any better with age ...