Much of what passes for multi-tasking today is little more than a coping mechanism. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to from observing my own multi-tasking behaviors. I find that I am most likely to switch between a variety of tasks when I’m having to wait for each of those tasks to complete. I’ll check e-mail, and while waiting for the messages to download, I’ll switch to Safari and visit some website or other. If the website is taking a while to load, I may open a new tab and check another website, or I may turn back to my e-mail and begin reading messages. While it sounds good to call this “multi-tasking,” it is really a disjointed workflow aimed at coping with the slowness of each task.
All of these interrupted tasks and broken trains of thought eventually lead to a kind of confused malaise in which it’s hard to focus on what to do next or to decide how best to complete any one task. This multi-tasking malaise seems all too common these days, so I don’t think it’s just me. 😉
Yesterday I talked briefly about how Accordance’s speed encourages you to try new things and ask new questions, since you don’t have to worry about the software bogging down. Similarly, Accordance’s speed enables you to stay focused on the task of Bible study without slipping into the multi-task malaise. When you search for something, Accordance delivers the results so fast you don’t have time to think about checking e-mail, surfing the web, or making a cup of coffee. Instead, you simply continue exploring the question that prompted you to do that search in the first place.
As I said yesterday, our goal in making Accordance fast and efficient is not to impress you with Accordance’s speed, but to make it something you never have to think about. That way, you can be free to study the Scriptures without succumbing to the dreaded multi-task malaise.