In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” To Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure one’s time; it was a mark of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”
Read the rest of Christine Rosen on the myth of multitasking. An excerpt:
[HT: Andrew Sullivan ]
2 comments:
Every human being on this planet must read this. It almost brought me to tears because it is so true and such a serious problem. I think we're all too busy to realize that we have a problem of being too busy. I see very little depth among any of the people I come in contact with each day. One of the more extreme examples is the mainstream media. When was the last time your read a news story that had any real depth with a fair presentation of all sides of a story!
I can only hope that some influential leaders emerge to give us a wake up call that we are destroying ourselves under the guise of becoming more "productive".
Deron,
I meant to respond earlier to your post but was doing far too much!
You are correct. We are swamped with information and with pleas for faster and faster responses. [As George Schultz said, "Don't just do something, stand there."] Far too many news stories are deadline driven and not depth driven.
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