DISQUS

Phil Glockner · 1 year ago

My sister and wife do this really well. I have too much ADD to be able to do this.. I'm either concentrating or I'm distracted.

n8k99 · 1 year ago

interesting.that is all i got right now.

Alex Hammer · 1 year ago

This is very very interesting. I personally believe that some people have a greater ability to do this (parallel attention) than others (I'm sure this skill can be improved also with practice).

Attention, in a world where information well processed is king (and speed is money), is a very valuable skill.

In a world of accelerating returns (the rate of change, the rate of new information is itself increasing) these skills are paramount.

That said, there is a point of diminishing returns. Errors occur when one is distracted (as do car accidents, a form of accident, when one is distracted). People need adequate sleep to function optimally (and even live longer and healthier) etc. In short, overall, while more is indeed more, at some point in the curve it reaches the point where more starts to become less.

There is also quality of life. If it is difficult to do this, which it can be, some will opt in and some will opt out.

Good analysis in this post -- very thought-provoking

mturro · 1 year ago

I deal with my information streams in exactly the same way. I really believe that this method represents an evolutionary leap in human cognition. You must be familiar with Stowe Boyd's theory of flow, no? This video of his talk at Reboot 9 really turned my head on all this stuff.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-464935...

Alex Hammer · 1 year ago

Also, in terms of errors, redoing something ultimately takes more time in the long run (same with relationships or any area where we repeat mistakes). It is important to push ourselves, I believe, including in attention, to maximize our output and increase our skills, but life also has limitations, and we're wise, I believe, when we heed them also.

What I try to do, not that I claim to be so great at it, is not hit home runs but hit a lot of singles (if one makes solid contact and hits a home run, all the better). One's health (and peace of mind - which entails different things for different people) is, I believe, the foundation of one's work (and life) house that can last a lifetime.

I've overreached in life, trying to hit those home runs, I think we all have. Tim McCarver, the renowned baseball announcer, asked what makes a winning broadcaster states "Let the game come to you". While still pushing oneself (often hard) I definately agree with that advice.

tommyl · 1 year ago

I still don't think there is such a thing as multitasking, despite the fact that I'm petting my cat and checking feeds as I write this. How automatically (and simultaneously) you can perform an action has to do with how well you've learned it. I'd bet you couldn't pound on the steering wheel and listen to loud music when you first learned to drive. But when you learned it, you could suddenly pay attention to all sorts of things as the scenery whizzes by. For more on this, see Sandra Blakeslee's excellent book The Body Has a Mind of It's Own.

Daryl Tay · 1 year ago

I definitely exist in this state for most of the day. Sitting in the bus thinking of what to blog, blogging and watching soccer, listening to a podcast and organising pictures on Flickr. It never ends! However I do admit that when I do need to put 100% attention into something, I have to cut the other things that need attention, or I only absorb/put in 80%.

Xavier · 1 year ago

As many people here, I go through a big amount of information everyday (email, RSS, radio, people around me, you name it, ...)

And I do indeed pay attention to several of these sources in paralell, but I have found out that most of it does not necessarilly print in my brain .... I tend to forget most of it ...

Mark Dykeman · 1 year ago

I would argue that successful professionals (or anyone, for that matter) have the constant juggling of thoughts and priorities as a part of their thoughts. Many times you have to exist in the moment, but you also have to think and plan ahead as you go. I visualize or mentally compose material while driving, as an example.

There are probably a lot of people who can't do that very well. It's possible that Gen Y and the next cohort will probably grow up doing this naturally, although I've also read concerns that this kind of continuous parallel attention can have a negative impact on children whose minds are still forming. By contrast, many of us from Gen X or earlier grew up in an era of more focused attention and processing due to fewer information and stimulation sources, so we mastered that before moving on to continous parallel attention.

Side question: do you ever feel that your mind enters a slightly different level of consciousness when you're in the middle of digesting multiple streams of information or tracking multiple conversations? Sort of a processing buzz, if you will? Occasionally I get this feeling and it's... cool. Don't know how else to describe it at the moment.

gregory · 1 year ago

mark, happy to see your side question ... no one talks about this stuff ... and the answer is, of course!

DAVE ID · 1 year ago

Can you hold a conversation while typing? Can you read blogs and write e-mail while watching TV? I do. And I must.

Yes I can, Yes I do all the time. Is that very sad&

Francesco · 1 year ago

The research done by the person above is a marvelous one. It would surely help me while studying for my exams.

gregory · 1 year ago

of course brain research says it is impossible, that it is you rate of switching that is high .... but there is also a, excuse me, "spiritual" explanation, one based on the mystic's idea that consciousness has a range from gross to subtle, and the phrase used for an enlightened saint is "at home with all knowledge"

explanation, if you are just watching one thing, call it input, rather than several different inputs, then it becomes easy ... the in the zone thing of athletes is similar ... and the saint, he is just paying attention to the self, and what flows through is fine, from whatever source

stephanmiller · 1 year ago

This is about the same way I handle things and people ask me how I can get so much done in a day. I am glad you renamed it. Because by productivity guru's, it's known as multitasking and they give it a bad name. So I have tried to fight this lately. "I must learn to single task". But my productivity has dropped as a result. So back to Continuous Parallel Attention with Twitter scrolling in the sidebar, Snackr scrolling feeds below while I check Friendfeed. It is amazing what you can pick up in this way. Snackr has actually increased my commenting by being random. And I get a lot more worthwhile reading done. I do shut it all off to write posts at times, but rarely since for most of my posts I need reference material at hand.

BryanG · 1 year ago

Excellent post and thoughts on the way we have to interact and manage tasks in a highly connected world. But One Caveat, there are times when we have to give things and relationships our concentrated engagement and focus. There's a balance that has to be struck depending on the task or situation.

Kalpesh Khivasara · 1 year ago

I somehow don't believe in "continuous parallel attention". You can manage non-important activities like your Tweets, RSS feeds, email,IM et al ; but when you really want to get something important done like that important pitch to a big client, I'd rather shut out all the windows and focus on the single task alone. Now that I have a full time job, I prefer to concentrate on a single task at a time because unlike the Tweets and personal emails, this is "business" and it's my ass that's on the line. So I think for full time bloggers and kind, continuous parallel attention may seem to work ; but for the rest, I think it's better one important task at a time.

marshal sandler · 1 year ago

Consciousness defies simple explanation. It has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of mind such as subjectivity, self-awareness,sentience, and the ability to perceive a relationship between oneself and one's environment. It has been defined from a more biological and causal perspective as the act of autonomously modulating attentional and computational effort, usually with the goal of obtaining, retaining, or maximizing specific parameters (food, a safe environment, family, mates)