Thursday, April 19, 2001

I’m learning something interesting about myself.

I can multitask. This isn’t the interesting thing that I’m learning; I’ve known that I can multitask for awhile. I can carry on multiple online conversations simultaneously; I can read a book while I’m managing a bunch of donwloads; I can formulate a speech as I garden, while occasionally checking on drying paint.

I’m learning that I shouldn’t multitask.

When I multitask, I split up my concentration between all those things I’m working on. As a result, I’m constantly distracted, as I leap from one job to another, juggling to keep all those balls in the air. I can’t focus my full attention on anything for any length of time.

I’ve been learning this as a result of putting myself on a regular schedule. Every night, I divide out my evening into discrete chunks. There’s time for dinner and socializing with my family, and time for my devotions, and for catching up on e-mails. And depending on the night, I may set aside time for writing or musical practice or anything else that I don’t do every single night.

And while I can’t do many things at once, I can concentrate on whatever I am doing. As a result, in the past week alone, I’ve gotten more accomplished in my writing and musical life than I had in months previously.

So, while I occasionally feel frustrated at my new schedules, they are definitely worthwhile. Now, I have to face the more dangerous question: Will I keep this up?

In other news…Saalon is going to try to get a regular income from his writing duties. Best of luck there. Be announced Q1 earnings, and they’re getting some nice revenue from their recent IA push. Now we can hope to see the stock rise above $1/share. I’ve been adding Cascading Style Sheets to my personal website here, and cleaning up the files as I come across them.

Oh, and I got a bit of writing done on a short story, set in a modern setting. It’s about relationships, and the silly things we do to each other while in them. More on that as I write it.

And after reading some of my earlier diary entries, Hawk pointed me at LiveJournal.com. It’s a site that’ll let you set up an online diary with tons of customization options. Very nice. Plus, it seems to have a very flexible search engine.

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