I am doing something that I call multitasking, but I realize it may not be accurate. It would probably be better to describe it as assessing my personal context switching, but it is a geeky explanation, so I will just describe it in detail.
I struggle with focus, to the extent that I would go and see someone about it and explore my options for treatments, if I could just find the time and effort and focus to do so. ADHD seems like a bad word, but on the other hand holding together one’s life when their brain is bursting at the seams can be bad too…
Back. To. Focus.
To accomplish tasks I normally have to really zone out. This has historically meant that zoning out time is prepared with many pots of tea (or harsher “energy” drinks in a different era), and entered into with the comfort of 180+ BPM blaring in over the ear headphones. John C. Lilly would be proud. While I’ve never had any sign of having accessed Xanadu, I have on occasion transformed into a golden god of hacking.
I would get stuff done.
That method is falling out of favor for two reasons. Firstly, my body can’t go 48 hours with less than 6 hours of sleep without it just kinda calling it in. I get sick, my body does a hard reboot, and I am bedridden for about 12-18 hours afterward. I wish this wasn’t an empirical assessment, but I’ve gotten my ass kicked in the last year. Blah.
Secondly, Clover. I can’t put myself into that state of mind of absolute focus to solve otherwise normal problems. Even for a person who could function on a daily basis without that intensity (if they exist), raising a child is an effort that requires splitting off shard personalities, just to ensure everyone’s survivability.
Of course me being an information worker is a large part of it. If I had to go to a place and count beans (or some derivative thereof), I could probably manage, since that is fairly easy to compartmentalize (though not at all energy-saving; I think exhaustion is a huge issue for parents). But I work with information, and that means that you don’t know what it is I do, and half the time, neither do I.
So, multitasking...
Yeah, I am getting to that.
I decided to create a list of things I want to do in a given day. One of the immediate benefits is that it forces me to break down larger projects into relatively simple tasks. I want to learn a different language, which means I have to learn it a little at a time. I want to actively share my RPG, which means I need to put up the pieces online.
My hope is that this will be a framework I can refer to when I have some ambitious idea (which is like, all of them). I would rather break it down and do some small part of it, than be paralyzed to inaction because I can’t muster the focus to take on a whole project and finish it in one large burst of effort.