Trying to be in Two Meetings at Once

Today I found myself needed in two meetings at the same time. Both required my attention and so I had to defer one until the other completed. That didn't keep the second meeting from sending me instant messages, which kept disrupting my first meeting. I could relax a bit when my first meeting ended and I could concentrate on the second.

Contrary to popular belief, humans are horrible at multitasking. While some think they can do two things at once, they really can't. What happens is that they focus on one and ignore the other. They then switch their focus and it feels like they are multitasking. This works well for my wife sewing and watching television at the same time. It doesn't work so well when she is sewing and I try to talk with her. She has to stop sewing to participate in the conversation.

I found myself trying to focus on my first meeting this morning as it happened to be with my boss. Every time I got a message from the second meeting, I had to ignore the first meeting. That worked as long as I was not needed. I made sure to glance over at the message only when another team member talked about something unrelated to me. If the message needed a response, I would start to answer but stop at every word and listen to see if someone required my input. Then I would write the next word. Writing and listening slowed me down significantly. While I may have appeared to be multitasking, I really wasn't. Fortunately I got through the first meeting without making a fool of myself.

I immediately jumped to the second meeting and listened intently for an hour and a half, providing feedback when needed. We tried to solve a networking issue using a new technology and eventually ran out of time. The person we tried to help ran up against a time constraint. While my afternoon had just started, he works in a part of the world where it came up on midnight. I thought I had it tough with trying to juggle Europe and Japan. At least Japan understands when it gets late and won't keep me in a meeting past 9pm. We will continue the meeting tomorrow morning and my hope is we will be able to get the problem solved. Unfortunately my morning is so packed with meetings, I hope I don't have to juggle two at once again. 

Who Says Men Can't Multitask

This afternoon I am currently working on 5 different projects all at the same time. This got me thinking about how men are not known for being able to multitask, yet I seem to be doing it quite well. I don't think I am that special either. It just takes a bit of technology and anyone can do multiple things all at the same time.

The way that computers multitask is by working on a project for a bit, saving the state of the work, moving to the next project, and so on until tasks are completed. Newer computers have multiple central processing units (CPU's) that work independently from each other. However the process is relatively similar. One CPU will start a task, then the next CPU, and so on until they are all busy. If there are more tasks to do, one CPU will save the state of the work, and start the new task. The reason computers do this well is that they are built to save the state of the current process very efficiently and then start the next one. Humans are a bit less efficient when it comes to switching tasks. I find it very difficult to put one project down and start another when the first one is not yet completed.

Fortunately this afternoon, I am using modern technology to do some of my work for me. The first thing I started is laundry. I don't have to sit and watch the washing machine do its thing and so I moved onto my next task. Last weekend I started printing something on my 3D printer only to have it stop because of a jammed nozzle. After starting laundry, I spent 5 minutes, cleaned the nozzle and restarted the print. So now I have 2 things going at the same time.

Thursday evening I picked up my copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 and loaded it up on my PS4 on the boat. That took about 2 hours before I could start playing. I will be home for the Thanksgiving week and want to play the game as well. After getting the 3D printer started, I started loading the game on my PS4 at home. So now I have 3 things going: laundry, 3D printing, and video game loading.

Next I noticed that the dishwasher had a bunch of dirty dishes and so I finished loading all of the dirty dishes out of the sink. Then I started the dishwasher. That brings me up to 4 things going simultaneously: laundry, 3D printing, video game loading, and washing dishes.

Recognizing that I am doing so much all at the same time, I had to write about it and so that is the 5th thing. I'm feeling pretty productive. The only downside is when everything is finished. Then I will have to fold the laundry, put away the dishes, and clean my 3D print. On the plus side, I can forget all of that and just go play my game.  With my blog entry done, I am now down to 4 tasks.

Solving Two Problems at Once

I had two goals when I started my work day: Upgrade a commercial software product and create a very complicated report. I will be able to get both done, but it has not been easy.

I started working on the software update first. It didn't take long to run into a problem and I knew I would. We have a complicated environment at work and one of the pieces of software we use didn't take this into account. That means we have to make some minor tweaks and modifications with the help of the product's technical support department. I got as far as I could and then put a call into support.

Since I was in a waiting pattern, I started collecting data for my complicated report. It would be nice if I could write a bunch of code and let the report run on its own. Unfortunately I have to gather the data for each month of a 3-year period by hand. Each month requires an increasing amount of computer time to run. While the first month only took 2 minutes, the last month is taking closer to 20.

At about the 6th month mark, I got a call back from technical support and we worked for a while installing the latest version of their product. Naturally there were times where the technical support engineer and I were waiting on the computer and so I would go back to my report and get data for another month or two. Eventually we got everything working. The only problem was that the upgrade required me to go back and set up all our user information again. At least I was able to hang up the phone and do that on my own while I continued working on my report.

When I started the day, the software update was my main focus. When I was waiting, I switched my focus to the complex report. Once I could continue with the update, I changed focus again. This cycle repeated itself throughout the day until the update was completed. Now I am working solely on the report. When you think about your computer doing multiple things at the same time, that is exactly the process it uses to switch between tasks. Now if I could only find something else to do while I wait for these final months of the report to complete, I'll be a happy camper.

Multitasking

Lately I have taken a look at how I try to do too much at the same time and how that can get me into trouble. The reason I started looking at this is because of a boat casualty this week. When I get done with my morning shower, I like to hang my towel out in the cockpit of the boat so it will dry. Before I head into the office, I bring the towel inside. This is because San Francisco has gotten a lot of rain lately and I don't want to come back to the boat and have a completely soaked towel. This can happen even though the day may start out sunny. Lately I have felt that I live in Seattle and not San Francisco.

Friday I must have had too much on my mind because I left the towel outside and forgot about it. I then headed to the airport after work and didn't get back to the boat until Monday evening. Naturally my towel was nowhere to be found. I assume that the wind blew it away. I did a look around the marina, but never found it.

How many other times have I left the lights on or forgotten something important because I was distracted? This week, I decided that it all boils down to multitasking. I start working on something, get interrupted and have to do something else. If I am lucky, I might actually get back to my original task, but more often than not, I am drawn to other tasks. Pretty soon, I am working on three or four tasks at the same time.

When computers multitask, they are about as inefficient as us humans. They work on a problem for a bit, save off all the information to someplace safe, then work on the next problem. When it comes time to work on the original problem, they copy all the saved information back to the working area and continue. The only advantage that computers have is that they are really good about remember what they are working on. In the case of the forgotten towel, I was packing up my dirty clothes, cleaning the boat, and brushing my teeth. When it came time to lock up the boat, I completely forgot about the towel.

In thinking about how I lost my towel, I have tried to come up with a way to keep that from happening again. One option is to just hang the towel inside the boat and forget about letting it dry outside. Unfortunately there is not enough air circulation in a boat and so nothing ever really dries. Mildew is a huge problem on boats. Borrowing a trick from my computer, I think I have devised a solution. My boat has a stainless-steel cable that runs around the outside called a lifeline. It is meant to keep all sailors in the boat when out on the water. It also works great as a drying line. Rather than hang my towel someplace out of the way on the lifeline, I now hang it right in my way so that I trip over it when I try to leave the boat. That way, I will never forget it again. In a way, that is what computers do. When they finish one task, they know what to work on next because it is right in front of them. So if you ever come to my house or boat and see things scattered on the ground, it is just my way of keeping track of what I am doing.