Slow-motion multitasking like a genius
I used to be a multitasking proponent. In fact, I used to blatantly exploit my laptop’s split-screen capability. During my university years, I always had my laptop’s screen split between coursework and anime. I would spend hours studying and watching anime (I do not condone such silly behavior). To me, multitasking was a superpower, and I always bragged about it. That was until I learned that multitasking can actually damage the brain. Which made me a bit sad, mostly because I had to give up watching anime when I worked or studied. But I only recently learned about the idea of slow-motion multitasking, and that changed everything.
Nothing is more thrilling than hearing other people praise your poor habits. And in some ways, that is how I felt as I watched Tim Harford’s Ted Talk, “A powerful way to unleash your natural creativity.” This man not only admired those who could multitask, but he also demonstrated that many of the greatest thinkers in history were multitaskers. It once again helped me feel significantly less guilty about my poor life choices.
Tim was not talking about juggling tasks, which is unfortunate for everyone who does it—including me. He was rather alluding to the multitasking of projects. The idea of slow-motion multitasking is, to put it simply, working on more than one significant project at once. Take Albert Einstein, for instance, who wrote four ground-breaking papers in total in 1905. The assumption that he must have worked on all four of these projects concurrently for a considerable amount of time would not be altogether insane on my part.
The aim is to replicate that precise trend in all of our professional activities. Working simultaneously on several significant projects is the goal. Slow-motion multitasking allows us to smoothly transition from one project to the other depending on our mood or the circumstances that we may find ourselves in. This turns multitasking into a creative break rather than a necessary evil to get work done. It enables us to continue to be creatively inspired as we work on one project and take a break from another. Now, we may purposefully transition to focus on something else when we feel distracted or rushed, as opposed to slacking from one activity to the next out of impatience or anxiety.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, slow-motion multitasking actually enables you to be more inventive and creative. Tim says there are three reasons why slow-motion multitasking is effective. First of all, creativity is the act of repurposing an idea from its original context. So, it’s much simpler to think outside the box when you keep switching between boxes. Second, mastering one skill very well might make you better at another. The third and most crucial point is that when we get stuck, slow-motion multitasking can help us get unstuck.
Consider instances where the incorrect response keeps popping up in your brain. For example, you might be trying to answer a crossword puzzle while the incorrect word is stuck in your head. Leaving that problem and moving on to something else will help your brain forget the incorrect response and make way for the correct response to emerge.
The ability to wiggle out of difficult situations is one of the most thrilling aspects of working on several projects at once. When you come up against an impassable roadblock, you can just switch projects. This significantly lessens the stress, despair, and anxiety that might develop when working on a single project that has no visible way out. As weird as it may seem, multitasking is not all that awful; the problem is how we do it, which leads to all the confusion. I cordially encourage you to explore the realm of slow-motion multitasking, release your most creative self, and get rid of unneeded stress and worry brought on by a lack of motivation or mental block.