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.

LIVING, LEARNING AND LOVING

Isabel Allende the Chilean-American author who was awarded the American Medal of Freedom last year said:-
“The longer I live the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything.”

I know how she feels. The part of me that agrees with her loves the freshness of thinking and the fearlessness of the young. The other part like Einstein - not that in any other way I have much in common with Albert the Genius - feels that the older you get the more insatiable your curiosity is.

That’s why I wrote my latest book “How to Solve Problems and make Brilliant Decisions”.

And it’s because of the book that the Dean of the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries at Portsmouth, Catherine Harper, asked me to go to lecture there.

You don’t know Portsmouth?

It’s the Venice of Britain, on an island called Southsea, more densely populated than any other city bar London. Until relatively recently it was a city slipping backwards into the sea like Venice. Then some good news happened. BAE announced shipbuilding was ceasing in 2014 ending years of speculation and forcing a strategy of renewal on the city. And the University became transformed with a programme of investment and positivity. Its progress up the league tables especially those relating to student engagement are impressive.

Portsmouth is beginning to feel like a city of the future with its Spinnaker, Gunwharf Quays and its programme of redevelopment including the relocation of the football ground into the centre. But most of all the University. There’s a choice, I guess, of mediaeval architecture, delicious quadrangles with “keep off the grass” as a welcome sign, the smell of Mansion Polish or the future.

However, much I love Oxbridge I equally love the sense of entrepreneurial excitement of a brave new world called tomorrow.

More Gown than Town I think. Well done.

And the smell of tomorrow was in my nostrils at my lecture to which they’d attracted, enrolled or more likely, its being Portsmouth, press-ganged an audience of 200.

You know that sensation of forming your ideas as you speak and of learning, palpably seeing things differently as you stand there talking being quizzically watched by 400 eyes?  Well I had it and it’s great. There were some searchingly effective questions which made me on at least two occasions slightly change my mind.  To the lady who dismissed my condemnation of multitasking as unrealistic when you’re running a home, sorry you’re right. On reflection it’s that prefix “multi” that’s wrong. Like “Hyper” or “Uber” it sounds good. What I hate is something slightly different. It’s “Muddle-Tasking” which is failing to complete anything properly because you’re on a mission of serial screw-ups.

I loved this lecture theatre and the spirit of this new purposeful Portsmouth. And I learned how much you learn lecturing to smart focused people.

The longer I live the more excited I am about possibilities, potential and youth. I saw all three this week.