"What am I doing" thread -- a KoTH followup

[thesummerqueen]

I am STILL doing homework...with a soundtrack though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nbA6OR2yTg

[Rayaan]

How much multi-tasking can some of you guys do? I suck at it.

[thesummerqueen]

Lots.

[Violet]

How much multi-tasking can some of you guys do? I suck at it.

Talking on a phone while I heal in WoW with the window only a tiny portion of my screen because I'm also chatting on both facebook and a forum and I'm thinking about a new talent build in rift with a game of chess in the flesh world between me and a friend off to the side of my computer and making fun of the person on the phone with hand signals and expressions whenever I get a free moment to do so.

That's how 'much' this one has accomplished at once... and she usually starts to fray in ability after the third unrelated task (note that healing involves situational awareness of 5 people including yourself and their hitpoint bars and anything you need to dispell from them).

A shame more people don't play chess with the Flower... I guess getting thrashed is just too hard for some people...

---

Lots.

Indeed... but even so: I prefer to do only a handful of different tasks at a time so I can completely tunnel vision into them and feel immersed

[thesummerqueen]

Good practice is cooking, Rayaan - learning how to use one stove to make all different parts of a meal and time it so all the dishes are completed around the same time. You have to learn to think fast, chop fast, and know what you're doing.

Which is basically all multitasking is - being so good at the things you're doing that a lot of it is automatic.

[Rayaan]

Talking on a phone while I heal in WoW with the window only a tiny portion of my screen because I'm also chatting on both facebook and a forum and I'm thinking about a new talent build in rift with a game of chess in the flesh world between me and a friend off to the side of my computer and making fun of the person on the phone with hand signals and expressions whenever I get a free moment to do so.

That's how 'much' this one has accomplished at once... and she usually starts to fray in ability after the third unrelated task (note that healing involves situational awareness of 5 people including yourself and their hitpoint bars and anything you need to dispell from them).

That's a lot. I don't know how you're able to juggle so many things.

o_0

Good practice is cooking, Rayaan - learning how to use one stove to make all different parts of a meal and time it so all the dishes are completed around the same time. You have to learn to think fast, chop fast, and know what you're doing.

I think that's true. My mother does that also.

While googling this topic, I found some studies which suggest that women are better multi-taskers than men:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scien...n-men.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...083042.htm

Also, this may or may not be true, but I read in a book that women's brains may have evolved in such a way as to make it easier for them to multi-task because (as mothers) they oftentimes have to look out for their babies while doing other work at the same time like cooking, for example. So, the theory is that multi-tasking was something that women were more exposed to than men and that's why they slowly got better at it.

[Autumnlicious]

I call bullshit on those 'studies'.

For one thing, the stereotypes of women that may incur certain environments or cultural cues to force development of multitasking is not considered, in fact, it is ignored and treated as if the average is somehow a 'natural' state of human biology.

It's not.

What does enhance multitasking is simply doing more multitasking -- social communication and cues are nothing but multitasking. It becomes obviously apparent that the predominating roles for growing girls which involves emphasis on socialization, communication and 'femininity' will train and strengthen multitasking.

It's not because they're women, it's because from day zero the expectations are quite different, which changes the face of the average. Were we to take scientists, male and female, and expose them to the same tests for multitasking, I predict the differences between sexes becomes nil.

Skill is like that.

Use it or lose it.

[Jackalope]

Relaxin', reading AF, nursing sore muscles from my weekend backpacking trip, and contemplating the virtues of hookers and blow.

[Violet]

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Talking on a phone while I heal in WoW with the window only a tiny portion of my screen because I'm also chatting on both facebook and a forum and I'm thinking about a new talent build in rift with a game of chess in the flesh world between me and a friend off to the side of my computer and making fun of the person on the phone with hand signals and expressions whenever I get a free moment to do so.

That's how 'much' this one has accomplished at once... and she usually starts to fray in ability after the third unrelated task (note that healing involves situational awareness of 5 people including yourself and their hitpoint bars and anything you need to dispell from them).

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That's a lot. I don't know how you're able to juggle so many things.

o_0

This is how:

1: Talk on the phone to someone who is doing random things around their house and mostly is afk, so there's only occasionally something to pay attention to, and most of what they need you for is to listen to them gripe ^_^
2: Heal an easy instance with an absurdly good tank you only need to check on every minute or so.
3: Do the forum thing at one of those mysterious times of day where next to nobody is on.
4: Only have 20 friends on facebook... only one of whom you talk to much.
5: Occasionally tab to the Rift talent calculator when little else is going on.
6: Play someone who isn't very good at chess.
7: Use your mocking motions enough that you perform them automatically.

Lesson: when someone tells you that they are doing 7 different things at once... what they mean is that they are failing to do 4-7 of them effectively

[leo-rcc]

I am trying to lessen the pain in my right arm. I have no idea what has happened but if I straighten my arm either deliberately or by accident it hurts like hell. It has gotten worse, and I've not had a good night sleep for days.