Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.
The real wisdom here cuts against our faith in busyness itself—it's not simply saying multitasking makes us sloppy, but rather exposing how we've dressed up a human limitation in the language of productivity. We've convinced ourselves that juggling five tasks simultaneously is sophisticated, when what we're actually doing is distributing our attention so thinly that nothing gets the mental presence it deserves. A surgeon doesn't multitask during an operation, nor does a parent truly listen to a child's worry while checking email; we instinctively know that some things demand singularity. Uzzell's wit works because it strips away the pretense and lets us see ourselves clearly—not as efficient modern workers, but as people trying to do the impossible and calling it ambition.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Aristotle“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
Lao Tzu“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.”
Seneca“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it mean...”
Steve Jobs