Internet Business and Personal Success

I’m fairly certain that you are actually smarter than you act. Sadly, you may be acting stupid, and I’m often in the same boat as you. Without proper focus, you’re doing things. This is not to say that you are stupid, I’d be willing to bet that you aren’t. You’re just doing some stupid things. Just like me.

Why so harsh? There’s an enlightening article in The Atlantic, which basically says that multitasking makes you stupid and slow, and who isn’t multitasking these days?

• The tv’s on in the background while we “work” on a project
• We’re on the phone while driving
• We’re checking email 10 times an hour while writing an article, or performing some vital business task
• The number of web browser windows that are open an awaiting our attention is well in the the double digits
• Chewing gum while walking seems like child’s play–better add a cell phone and a jump rope

It’s a long article, but worth reading if only to scare you straight. I really love the part where a researcher gives hope for multitaskers. He says that people can actually learn to do 2 tasks “at once” as well as someone who does them sequentially. Ah… Hope! Of course, his studies indicate that it takes 2000 times before this is exhibited. So much for the good news.

Computers multi task, and it often slows them down to a crawl. Much of the time, they are responsive. This is usually because they’re doing relatively little in the background. But take your basic machine, and do something like search for all files on the main hard drive that contain the text “internet marketing”. Let it go and find those files. Then start using the machine for something else. Web Browsing. Write an article. Run your virus checker… You’ll likely notice a huge difference in responsiveness of the machine. It’ll take you longer to do what you want to do, and it’ll also take the machine longer to find the files.

This happens for a reason other than the cpu speed. It happens because there’s another bottleneck in the system, the hard drive. Not matter how fast the computer chip can process things, it still needs to access data on the hard drive to accomplish its tasks. The hard drive is extremely slow compared to the cpu, so the cpu ends up waiting around a lot for it to return data.

While I don’t know what the bottleneck in you is, I’m sure at least one exists, and if you are attempting to concentrate one more than one thing at a time, you will slow down, and become stupid. At least temporarily. The easy remedy?

1. Do one thing at a time, and do it well.
2. Focus only on that one thing.
3. Get it done. Finish it.
   
4. Move on the the next thing.

No bottleneck… Just results.How will this work for you?

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