Multi-tasking

I’ve come to be aware of how increasing age effects the definition of common English terminologies:

Up to age 40 years old: Multi- tasking was see how many things I could do at the same time, like 6 tabs open on the computer, or talking on the phone, doing a spreadsheet, participating in a video teleconference, and rearranging files all at once.
Going forward to age 60 years old: Multitasking was seeing how many of those same things I could do in a day.
Now: Multi-tasking is tracking the things I’ve done all in the same week.

The good news is the motivation to accomplish multiple tasks remains sound. And the concept of speed remains relevant as the turtle speeds by the snail.

Memory and multi-tasking are too completely different issues, I think, or I thought……what were we talking about?

[QUOTE=ZoraSpook;585492]I’ve come to be aware of how increasing age effects the definition of common English terminologies:

Up to age 40 years old: Multi- tasking was see how many things I could do at the same time, like 6 tabs open on the computer, or talking on the phone, doing a spreadsheet, participating in a video teleconference, and rearranging files all at once.
Going forward to age 60 years old: Multitasking was seeing how many of those same things I could do in a day.
Now: Multi-tasking is tracking the things I’ve done all in the same week.

The good news is the motivation to accomplish multiple tasks remains sound. And the concept of speed remains relevant as the turtle speeds by the snail.

Memory and multi-tasking are too completely different issues, I think, or I thought……what were we talking about?[/QUOTE]

Most project management processes are now stating that multitasking as in the way we do things in parallel is NOT possible.

In reality we start and stop many projects in small time intervals, and it is more like "time sharing".

Now the BIG issue with that is the stop/startup process is dynamic, and not always quantifiable.

Example. start a task, go do somethign else, come to first task, check it, go start something else, etc, etc.

DEPENDING on the complexity of the something else, the restartability of the first task may take 5 seconds or 5 minutes..........if 5 minutes and the task was only a 5 minute task, you would have been better off single threading and accomplishing that TASK.

Bottom line if you have 10 complex tasks it is best to single thread those tasks to completion, versus trying to multi task on them. ..........that does not mean you have a final result for each task, but if the task has a defined ending point but is not complete, you can probably pick it up with minimal loss but if not........welp.

It is interesting though.

If I'm painting cabinet doors, it is probably more efficient to paint each door, let them try and then paint each door again, painting them all together. there is downtime between the group of doors but not as much if I painted each door let it dry painted it again called it good, and then did the next door..............

BUT......in my door painting example above, that is not multi tasking, IMHO.

Later,

Geo

Well I do still believe in multi-tasking and here are some examples that this country boy is sure you can’t find fault with:
1. Sometimes with a full mouth of pretzels I take a sip of beer while watching tv.
2. With my foot on the brake and looking in the rear view mirror I turn on my turn signal.
3. Sometimes when I pee I pass gas.
4. I can walk, chew gum, and still swat mosquitoes.
5. I can laugh, get a tear in my eye, and still stump my foot all at once.
6. And when I was in the Army I got into a bar fight with a Marine and found I could throw a punch, get hit, and bleed all at the same time I was yelling and screaming.

So yeah, I think multitasking exists.