{"id":5869,"date":"2022-11-14T19:23:36","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T00:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=5869"},"modified":"2022-11-14T19:23:38","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T00:23:38","slug":"mental-multitasking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/11\/14\/mental-multitasking\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental Multitasking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is a common stereotype of programmers, which is that they are inherently good at multitasking due to the type of work we do. The idea is that you&#8217;re dealing with all sorts of things at once &#8211; the analogy of &#8220;juggling chainsaws&#8221; is often mentioned, as is how disruptive any sort of interrupting is for this complex mental gymnastics that we are supposedly doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, I am a programmer (and a reasonably good one, by all accounts), and I think that many of these sterotypes apply to me as well&#8230; yet despite all of that, in real life I actually am terrible when it comes to multitasking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This comes as rather a surprise (not the least to myself) &#8211; you&#8217;d think that with all the mental juggling I have to do when coding, some of that skill at least would transfer into other things &#8211; yet it doesn&#8217;t. I actually struggle when, for example, cooking and trying to bring multiple dishes together at the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I wonder &#8211; do any other programmers or coders or similarly-minded people out there have the same sort of problem? That you can multi-task like crazy in your preferred domain, but in anything else you&#8217;re absolutely hopless? I&#8217;d like to think it&#8217;s not just me, but I honestly don&#8217;t know for sure &#8211; if you&#8217;re reading this, let me know what your experiences are! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a common stereotype of programmers, which is that they are inherently good at multitasking due to the type of work we do. The idea is that you&#8217;re dealing with all sorts of things at once &#8211; the analogy of &#8220;juggling chainsaws&#8221; is often mentioned, as is how disruptive any sort of interrupting is&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/11\/14\/mental-multitasking\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mental Multitasking<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,525],"tags":[526,386,107],"class_list":["post-5869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-programming","tag-multitasking","tag-personal","tag-programming","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-1wF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1281,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/08\/13\/10-tips-for-new-programmers\/","url_meta":{"origin":5869,"position":0},"title":"10 Tips for New Programmers","author":"Keith Survell","date":"August 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It occurred to me the other day that I've been doing this stuff (programming) for more than a few years now - most of them in a very much \"professional\" manner. So I guess that makes me qualified to come up with lists like this! Learn the machine. Build yourself\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":982,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/11\/21\/programming\/","url_meta":{"origin":5869,"position":1},"title":"Programming","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Programming is the fine art of making a machine that has absolutely no intelligence act as though it does.\"","rel":"","context":"In &quot;personal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2951,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/02\/23\/living-with-windows-7\/","url_meta":{"origin":5869,"position":2},"title":"Living with Windows 7","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Keith's review of Windows 7 after living with it for almost a month.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":231,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/09\/09\/the-tao-of-programming\/","url_meta":{"origin":5869,"position":3},"title":"The Tao Of Programming","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 9, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Yet another neat thing to read. Maybe more meaningful to me, but if you read it... you may become enlightened.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;tech&quot;","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1201,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/07\/10\/some-of-my-programming-book-recommendations\/","url_meta":{"origin":5869,"position":4},"title":"Some of MY Programming Book Recommendations","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, I shouldn't say \"recommendations,\" since I'm just recommending one book: Testing Computer Software (Second Edition) by Cem Kaner, Jack Falk, and Hung Quoc Nguyen. This is an utterly invaluable book for anyone who ever aspires to be more than just a code monkey. Technically speaking, this book was written\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1882,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/04\/09\/communication-and-programming\/","url_meta":{"origin":5869,"position":5},"title":"Communication and Programming","author":"Keith Survell","date":"April 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Programming is all about communicating - communicating with the computer, and with other people. So it follows that to be a good programmer, you need to be a good communicator, too.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5870,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869\/revisions\/5870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}