Hyper-threading Thoughts
January 18th, 2009 (Life)I have this problem where I can’t multitask my thoughts. So, if I am driving, I can’t carry on a conversation without losing concentration on my driving (which is bad). I can’t talk to someone very easily while trying to work at the computer. Basically, I can’t carry on a conversation while being actively engaged in some other task.
Now, maybe this sounds pretty normal to you. I know it’s not unusual for guys to not be able to multitask. But, consider this. I was watching a little bit of the live video stream from Leo Laporte earlier today. He has a tech call-in show where he answers questions people have about their computers/gadgets/etc… So, Leo is carrying on a conversation with someone on the phone/Skype AND watching a chatroom full of people giving him ideas of how to answer the questions AND doing research online about all these things. All of this happens while he drives the conversation with the person on the other end of the line and never loses his train of thought. Oh yeah, and he’s hosting a 3 camera live show while he sits/bounces on his exercise ball. During one show, the ball he was sitting on popped, and he would have just kept on going except that someone asked what the noise was.
So, I know it’s just a movie, but Rocket Science portrays a high school debate team. The kids on this team talk so fast that I can’t even hear what they are saying. My mind can’t even keep up with this fast of a train of thought. Now, I know with debates, every possible talking point is prepared before-hand, and I know that you could easily speed up talking on film without changing the pitch, but dang. There are just some people that have that really strong brain to mouth connection and can keep one line of thought with plenty of other distractions going on around them.
I would like to train my mind to have more than one active process at a time. A kind of hyper-threading if you will. Anyone have ideas for how to do this? Perhaps a more efficient conversation pipeline? Let me know your best tricks of the trade.
There have been studies done that indicate that multi-tasking does not give you the same quality of focused brain power that you would work with if you would just drill in on one thing at at time. Gen Y’s are notorious for multi tasking and their ability to concentrate is not as good as Gen X and older. I love to multi task, but I do not pick up on the same level of detail as people around me who do not multi task as much. Since I am a big picture thinker and like to get things done quickly, this doesn’t usually phase me. I think, however, if your thought process is like a laser beam that illuminates one thought at a time, you should *focus* on increasing the power of the beam instead of trying to light up your whole brain.
Leo may thrive on being able to do 10 things at once. But, I would guarantee you that he is not doing those 10 things as well as he could if he just picked one to do at a time. What kind of brilliance might come out of his mouth if he just focused on the conversation??