A good summary of Newport’s thinking around the myth of multitasking and the issues of the modern “hyperactive hivemind” in the workplace. Check it out here if you don’t have an NYT subscription. My favorite part:
Traditional economic productivity largely requires people working toward a singular measurable output with a transparent process. You have this input-to-output ratio and a process generating it, and you can tweak that and see what it does to the ratio. None of that works in knowledge work. So we fell back to a proxy for productivity, which is visible activity. If I can see you doing work, it’s better than I can’t see you doing work. That was OK until we got to the ’90s and the 2000s, when we threw into the mix a lot more freelancing but also email and the I.T. revolution. Visible activity as a proxy for productivity spiraled out of control and led to this culture of exhaustion, of I’m working all the time, I’m context shifting all over the place, most of my work feels performative, it’s not even that useful. Slow productivity is all about identifying alternatives.
IT’S CORONATION DAY
I doubt he started it; it was probably going on 100 years before he was born. But I cackled!
(Also wish they had spelled “Allan” right. 🤓)
This was me yesterday, though today is much better. The cicadas really killed me 😂
maculategiraffe