Whew!

This week was insanely busy, I think. And I'm exhausted. I was running like a madman all week, but just don't feel like I accomplished as much as I should for the amount of effort expended. Perhaps that's a clue. For all the ink spilled about the myriad demands on each of us, the need to juggle many responsibilities at once and the benefits of multitasking, I'm convinced it's simply not possible. We wired to do one thing at a time, period. Maybe some are better than others at "time-slicing" (IT lingo for quick-swapping from one task to the next), but even they are still single-tasking.

I can juggle 50+ different tasks an hour, and regularly do, but the constant change from one to the other results in many things poorly done. My work is such that it's often unavoidable, but the occasions when I can focus on one task for awhile are the most productive and the most satisfying.

So, where does lazy come in? I think it's in allowing the interruptions to feed the insatiable desire for variety and the intellectual stimulation of a fresh task. At least that's the part I can control, and should. I've always been a library junkie, reveling in the endless cornucopia of things to be learned and explored. With the world's greatest library (the Web) now at my fingertips, the surfing has probably reduced my attention span to that just shy of a goldfish (3-7 sec). If industriousness is the opposite of laziness and this requires a disciplined focus on the task at hand...then it's virtually hopeless unless I go cold turkey on the Internet. What, and stop this blog?!

Is there such a thing as an Internet addiction? If addiction is defined as an activity that is so compelling or habitual that it crowds out daily responsibilities and is painful to avoid, then clearly there is. Maybe I should check out Bill W's 12-step program...

Or maybe I should be a librarian. Er...an Electronic Information Specialist.