Oh, hell, well… I guess that you can already guess, too, where this is going.
Well, if not, hang in there for a second. In such cases where one needs to maintain an optimal window of opportunity on getting tasks finished in the least amount of time (because things must get done, in any case), context switching just swivels up your ass. Because, for me, honestly, it just completely kills any sort of capability that I would have to have a concentrated focus needed to tackle a particular issue or problem.
You see, for some reason it is expected of us to somehow be able to maintain an optimal kind of performance, whilst maintaining an error-free ratio of deliverables to our peers and also while all of that is happenning, juggling a juggernaunt ammount of information, and tasks, and people demanding our attention, and notifications popping up and other kids screaming in the backyard, and hell… it just leaves me exhausted considering about this for a second.
Of course, of course, it is not always, 100% of the goddamned time that stuff like this happens, but even so, now and then, even when it is not all of them happenning simultaneosly, some other things, in a few minor occurences do still seem to happen every now and then.
And gosh, it just wears me out so much faster than just being able to focus and concentrate into a single task and work on with it non-stop for hours. I mean, I know I can do it because I have done such a thing previously, a number of times, but mostly… Mostly it was during a time between midnight and 3 a.m., when I would be sure to have no disturbances, everyone was asleep, and I could put my earphones on and spin an ambient track and go with it, until my body begged to let itself shut down.
I know, I know, not the best provision in a health-wise circunstance, looking up to the long term life-span, but even so… Sometimes, stuff like that needed to be done. And better yet, a few times, (more often than not) things got done this very way.
So then, we come back to the initial resolution of this blog post in particular: how task and context switching completely fucks us up. And worse yet is the fact that employers expect you to be capable to operate on unoperable environments (not physically, but mentally that is), where every single time new expectations pop up for you to resolve.
And I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love resolving stuff, and coming up with resolutions, but god, on human standards there is a particular mindframe and also together with another particular time-frame on which one can operate optimally. And maybe the labor market increasingly expecting us to operate on 110% of that goal all of the time is just unsustainable (to say the least).
Because each time you have to switch to a new perspective or tasks, it is not just “moving in” with your attention. Context has to follow, you have to remind yourself everything related to that particular issue and whatnot, and even more other things… Everything has to be ready at the top of your metaphorical toungue.
And sometimes it just doesn’t work that way. Maybe we had a bad night, or our health condition is not so good…. But expectations are expectations, aye. And I do consider that it is not people that are getting weaker in the times we are living in. But that it is the constant exploitation of our workforce and mental capabilities that are getting derailed into the mud of our thoughts while trying to constantly hang it all together to avoid things from breaking apart (be a project we are part of, family, or whatmore)…
Oh well, a meeting is starting and I have to attend that now.
In any case, it was good talking to you all folks!
Gotta go.
Paece.