How many hacksaws can you keep in the air?

[lagilman]

Over in matociquala's LJ, a discussion is going on about hemispheric domination (are you left-brained or right-brained). This led me into a contemplation of another brain function: multitasking.

Unlike Bear, I tend not to get fascinated by the details of why -- once I figure it out, I'm more interested in how the results play out in realtime.

For example, right now I am watching a movie (Shakespeare in Love), writing this post, composing [mentally] a scathing e-mail that will never be sent to someone who needs a flaming iron shoved up his arse, and writing a totally kickass scene in DOWN INTO DARKNESS that requires me to have three different scenes playing out in real time, at three different locations, all tied to each other in almost perfect synchronization [and it's a fricking brilliant scene, if I do say so myself. Blood! Angst! Wisecracks! Woobie!].

Because I'm so spread out, things like typos will creep in. And my inability to stay in tense is well-known [and yes, I do it in speech too. I have been accused of being a time-traveler dropped once too often on my head, but that's another story and there I am going into parenthetical asides again]

Clearly, if I want to write sans typos, and save myself revisions later, I should focus on only one thing at a time.

I tried that. I couldn't function. Not only that I couldn't create [I couldn't] but I could. Not. Function. It's just how I'm hardwired.

But many of my favorite people [and my therapist will doubtless have things to say about my tendency to fall for single-focused types, but oh well] are NOT multi-taskers. Perfectly nice people, mostly, and just as or more effective than I am -- it's just a different kind of wiring.

So it made me wonder

a) how LJ (as a randomly self-selected sampling) skews: multi-task vs tight-focus workers
b) how sample (a) skews to left or right brain hemispheres. (the test is here

Come on, fess up.... I'll be over there in the corner, making P.B. bleed.

Comments

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

(a) I don't multitask so much as bounce: Write (which is an oddly thoughtless process when I finally get down to it); wander (which is when I think); write; do the dishes (thinkthinkthink); write; torture a cat; wander; write... And so on until complete.

(b) The test contends I'm more right-brained, but not by All That Much (11 of whatever we're counting for the right; 7 for the left). This seems about right to me, since I had to do a heckuva lot of learning how to organize so other people could find the stuff I put away -- a valuable, employable trait for a career secretary. Me, I'm perfectly happy organizing my CDs by ...gah... call it "relationship." Drives kinzel bugs.

(c) Bonus answer: If you tie my hands behind my back, I can't talk.

[lagilman]

(c) Bonus answer: If you tie my hands behind my back, I can't talk.

My ex thought it was funny to grab me by the wrists and announce - "look! She can't talk like this!"

I didn't find it quite as amusing as he did. But it was true. I was deeply unnerved while in Germany not because everyone was so remarkably blond, but because they all kept their hands perfectly still when they spoke. Weeeeeeeird.

[girasole.livejournal.com]

(c) Bonus answer: If you tie my hands behind my back, I can't talk.

indeed. Me, too. I used to think it was because I am Italian-American, but many verbal types share this.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Yep. Same here. I go silent, or fix on one word and make myself repeat it. But I can't communicate verbally with my hands not available.