2 min read newsletter

Daily Productive Sharing 126 - No Parallel Processing

(The English version follows)

#todo #time_management

尽管计算机早已被设计成多线程处理，我们的大脑仍旧只能同时处理有限的任务。Your Brain at Work 一书把处理短期任务的前额叶皮质比喻成一个舞台：在一个舞台上，只有一台戏在演出。也就是说，我们的大脑只能处理极其有限的短期任务。

然而，在日常生活中，我们却陷入多线程的陷阱，比如我们工作时，常会被邮件吵到，或者被其他同事要求协助。这样一来，我们手头的工作就会被耽误。今天的分享中，作者总结了多线程任务的坏处：

  1. Kills productivity
  2. Impedes cognitive function
  3. Diminishes attention
  4. Depletes energy
  5. Confuses priorities

当然她也给出了一些解决之道，比如：

  1. time blocking
  2. 番茄工作法
  3. 冥想
  4. 提前告知大家你需要专注工作
  5. 提倡异步沟通

Weekly Book Club 017 - 20200206

欢迎转发，感谢分享:)

原链

How Context Switching Sabotages Your Productivity

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Although computers have long been designed for multi-threaded processing, our brains can still only handle a limited number of tasks simultaneously. The book Your Brain at Work compares the prefrontal cortex, which handles short-term tasks, to a stage: a stage can have only one play being performed. In other words, our brains can only handle a very limited number of short-term tasks.

However, in our daily lives we fall into the trap of multithreading, for example when we are at work, we are often annoyed by emails or asked to assist by other colleagues. In this way, the work at hand is delayed. In today's sharing, the author summarises the disadvantages of multi-threaded tasks.

  1. Kills productivity
  2. Impedes cognitive function
  3. Diminishes attention
  4. depletes energy
  5. confuses priorities

Of course she also offers some solutions, such as

  1. time blocking
  2. Pomodoro work
  3. meditation
  4. telling people in advance that you need to focus on your work
  5. promoting asynchronous communication

Weekly Book Club 017 - 20200206

How Context Switching Sabotages Your Productivity

Try our sustainable productivity tool BRNR List

Please add acacess@substack.com as your contact to avoid mislabeling the newsletter as spam.

Excerpt

There’s a name for that all-too-familiar experience of toggling between screens, apps, and tasks in response to interruptions: context switching.

While our technology can handle context switches without missing a beat, our human brains cannot. Each time we’re interrupted mid-task, we pay a tax on our time and attention.

The more your attention is divided, the harder it becomes to stay focused on any one thing in a vicious cycle that ends in mental exhaustion with little to show for it.

Every tool or service we add creates a new network of collaborators and notifications, adding fresh complexities and interdependencies.

Most workers can’t go 6 minutes without checking email or instant message, according to Rescue Time.

Interruptions aren’t just external. We’re actually just as likely to interrupt ourselves as we are to be interrupted.
Dr Selfie

Dr Selfie