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Incremental Consistency
It is a simple fact that I usually have several irons in the fire. The past few days I've been feeling a little out of sorts with various projects staring at me, accusingly, of being incomplete. But taking stock, I realised that I had been chipping away: I've made a solid start on my second assignment for developmental psychology, which isn't due for a month, on the juicy topic of defining when a person becomes an adult (biologists, neurologists, lawyers, politicians, and individuals can have a grand fight over that one!). As an RPG advocate I've been working my way through the annual RPGaDay questionnaire . I'm doing a substantial revision of my training workshop on High Performance and Parallel Python (there is much I dislike about Python; mainly on efficiency grounds). In addition, I'm writing an article for the Isocracy Network. All of this plus my usual work tasks (three training workshops next week), another diamond league place pending in Duolingo, and more.
The realisation is that I engage in the art of productive procastination. If my brain isn't in the space to do a task that I want or need to do, I pick another task that I want or need to do. I am sure that everyone does this to an extent, but the real skill is recognising when one is not being productive in the task they are currently working on and then switching to a very different task that their brain is currently much more interested in. Of course, this won't work when deadlines are looming and hyper-focus is required, but properly conducted deadlines won't loom; one will have tasks near completion well before the deadline. The point is, to be productive in different activities that one considers requisite. Incremental action on the desired task with recognised deadlines result in a great deal of productive output, rather than struggling all day on something that a person just doesn't feel up to.
This relates to a comment that a friend made recently; they described one of my virtues as "consistency", a term which I quite warmed to. This doesn't mean, of course, that one doesn't change their tastes or interests, but that the change itself is incremental. It is something that applies across normative and aesthetic dimensions. My politics have sat in a broad libertarian-socialist ideology since my early teenage years. I try my utmost to keep commitments and affective orientations, respect the rights of others (especially when they conflict with my own opinions), and so forth. My aesthetic interests and activities have not changed dramatically over the decades. But it was only the past few days that I really considered this trait in terms of productivity and achievement. It is just a preliminary observation at this point, but inconsistent people tend to (a) want immediate gratification and (b) take up projects with over-enthusiasm and then abandon them, and (c) don't actually achieve a great deal. Perhaps there's a lot more to be said for incremental consistency than just a descriptive. It may actually be a predictor of achievement.
The realisation is that I engage in the art of productive procastination. If my brain isn't in the space to do a task that I want or need to do, I pick another task that I want or need to do. I am sure that everyone does this to an extent, but the real skill is recognising when one is not being productive in the task they are currently working on and then switching to a very different task that their brain is currently much more interested in. Of course, this won't work when deadlines are looming and hyper-focus is required, but properly conducted deadlines won't loom; one will have tasks near completion well before the deadline. The point is, to be productive in different activities that one considers requisite. Incremental action on the desired task with recognised deadlines result in a great deal of productive output, rather than struggling all day on something that a person just doesn't feel up to.
This relates to a comment that a friend made recently; they described one of my virtues as "consistency", a term which I quite warmed to. This doesn't mean, of course, that one doesn't change their tastes or interests, but that the change itself is incremental. It is something that applies across normative and aesthetic dimensions. My politics have sat in a broad libertarian-socialist ideology since my early teenage years. I try my utmost to keep commitments and affective orientations, respect the rights of others (especially when they conflict with my own opinions), and so forth. My aesthetic interests and activities have not changed dramatically over the decades. But it was only the past few days that I really considered this trait in terms of productivity and achievement. It is just a preliminary observation at this point, but inconsistent people tend to (a) want immediate gratification and (b) take up projects with over-enthusiasm and then abandon them, and (c) don't actually achieve a great deal. Perhaps there's a lot more to be said for incremental consistency than just a descriptive. It may actually be a predictor of achievement.
no subject
Prolonged concentration may cause a compound called glutamate - which can be harmful at high levels - to accumulate in regions at the front of the brain
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2333230-why-thinking-hard-for-several-hours-can-leave-you-mentally-exhausted
Extended hyper-focus is not good for your brain.
no subject
http://markforster.squarespace.com/autofocus-system/
no subject
The entire direction of productive procrastination seems very valuable. It provides the useful context switching that the brain needs, it doesn't force one to engage in multitasking (well, it's concurrent, rather than parallel), and it isn't a time-wasting distraction.
no subject
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160218-why-multi-tasking-might-not-be-such-a-bad-idea
"In 2014 it was found that 99% of adults use two forms of media simultaneously at some point every week. On average people do this for two hours and three minutes each day. The most popular combination is watching TV at the same time as chatting on the phone."
"The problem here is something known as attention residue. Experiments have demonstrated that when you switch your attention from one task to another, a bit of your mind is still focused on the previous task... This can increase your cognitive load."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597809000399
"Many studies over the years have found that in general people are slower and less accurate when they do two tasks at once. .. In Sophie Leroy’s experiments on attention residue, this hangover from the previous task disappeared if it had been done under time-pressure... When people were given a tough deadline, they are forced to narrow their options and to make decisions which are cognitively less complex. This in turn decreases the hangover from that first task, allowing them to put it behind them and get on with the next job. "
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4561751/#B93
"Multi-tasking is hardest when the tasks are similar to each other, but a bit easier if they are different... If the tasks are different enough then multi-tasking can even improve your performance. "
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25970607
"And if you are a supertasker then you don’t have the same problems the rest of us do. Just over 2% of people are brilliant at multi-tasking and suffer no drop in performance."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20702865
"The problem is that most of us aren’t very good at knowing whether or not we fit into this group. The same psychologists found that the better people believed they were at multi-tasking, the worse they performed on a test which required them to memorise a list of words while also doing maths problem."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3553130/
".. people who regularly used three or more different media at a time were better at integrating the information that came in through their ears and their eyes. Since real life involves a lot of integration of different senses this could be a good skill to have."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22528869
"The intriguing thing about multi-tasking is that although it can increase your cognitive load many of us still can’t resist working in this way... It seems even if it’s not the most efficient way to work, it feels less of an effort. It certainly can keep us entertained while we work if we do things other than concentrate on the task in hand."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4561751/#B93