THE MULTITASKING PARADOX

I’ve written frequently on the pernicious effects of multitasking. Focus, I instruct, focus on one thing at a time and stop juggling.

At a talk I gave at Portsmouth University a lady upbraided me for this:-
“But what do I do when my son wants help with his homework, my husband wants his supper and I need to finish my essay? How can I not multitask?”

I was kind but firm in insisting an orderly queue was formed and that each task was exquisitely performed and then everyone would be happy.  I knew as I said this I was talking bollocks. Apart from anything else I was talking to a woman. And women actually can multitask better than men. Fact.

This week I had to become a woman.

We’re moving house…multitasking women’s work…where they excel.

But disastrously my wife was very unwell - had to stay in bed - as unusual a thing as Netanyahu and Obama doing a man hug - she became a shivering germ-bag - a pretty one but nonetheless if it sneezes, groans and closes its eyes it’s a class A germ-bag.

So I was in charge.

f my wife’s plan; inheriting her way of doing things…. I had to think like her. Removal men, solicitor, BT, Bank, Estate Agent, Council, Royal Mail, Builder, Cleaners, an army of people all recruited and briefed by her who, she being unable to speak, meant I was their new CEO.

And they all spoke to me at once and rushed around me doing things and if I didn’t instantly respond to:- “this to go on the lorry Mate? …is this one to pack or stay? … can you return the deeds now please? … can you confirm that postcode?”… then they showed their initiative and that was usually a catastrophe.

It wasn’t that hard but it was an unremitting exercise in doing what I’d been telling people to stop doing, as the brain is not designed to do it - multitasking. And moving house or dealing with anything that is existentially critical is almost by definition one requiring multitasking skills.

My experience in multitasking came to a head as I took off my pyjamas on Saturday morning. A trivial thing which one can easily do whilst concurrently doing another task like reading a checklist, moving items around on a shelf…top off easy…trousers off on one side and using my toes to pull off trouser leg two I suddenly became aware that leg one and leg two had inexplicably both got trapped in trouser leg one causing me to lose balance and fall heavily to the ground. This multitasking has got a lot of minor injuries to answer for.

Yet, it’s simple enough.

Have a detailed plan. Any of us can manage to multitask up to a point but there’s no point in saving five seconds on trouser removal when the consequence is so silly.

And plan succession management. Or blame your poor wife.

Or simply be away.

THE MAKING OF A PRESIDENT

”Did you hear the one about the Mormon underpants?”

I’ve been watching the US Presidential Election in fascination. It started (it seemed) as Sonny Liston against Cassius Clay and then Cassius began to show feet of clay and a kind of sterile aloofness.  David Clark who used to advise Robin Cook in the late 1990s put it well:-

“I still care about the election result, but not in the way I used to. A decade ago….decisions taken in the White House were life-changing…. but all of that is now for the history books, because …America is now a country in decline…. the most important world-changing events today are happening in spite of America, not because of it.”

It’s hard to judge things from this distance although I recall driving across Massachusetts and Virginia in 1992 and hearing Ross Perot beating up Bush and Clinton on the radio and beginning to think (fantastically) that Ross could win. Being close to the trees doesn’t mean you see the wood.

Unelectable with those ears

It was in 1992 that James Carvill, Clinton’s campaign manager coined the campaign slogan, “the economy, stupid”. It turned out to be a winning thought. And I’ve been somewhat in a minority (actually the only person I’ve recently met) who though Romney really ought to win….so long as his focus was on the economy, jobs and reclaiming American pride.

He put it quite well when he said:-

“And this President wakes up every morning, looks out across America and is proud to announce, 'It could be worse.' It could be worse? Is that what it means to be an American? It could be worse? Of course not….. What defines us as Americans is our unwavering conviction that we know it must be better.”
In truth he – master of outsourcing at Bain – could plausibly claim to know his way around the jobs scene and be capable of being an equally adept master on insourcing which is precisely what the USA needs as unemployment remains at around 8%.

Worthy of Don Draper

Obama’s trouble is he’s too worldly and urbane for a lot of Americans. Strangely in a land where the Buffetts, Trumps and Gates are such formidable wealth accumulators Obama seems strangely unmoved by money and in this respect he’s very un-American. His faux pas – they happen on the campaign trail – is ironic because in a way he does think America has to move forward not back:-

"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.
I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it."

He’ll probably win, helped by a commanding storm-performance and because of what Nick Curtis of the Evening Standard discovered in his recent trip to America

“Everywhere we met voiced opinions more nuanced and thoughtful than anything uttered in the campaign.”

But I still have the funny feeling that “the economy stupid” could pull it off.

Here’s the real story about America

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