Mental bandwidth is one of those things that is ignored often. We don’t generally have space in our head to entertain too many things at once. Things are best done the traditional way – one thing at a time.
The worst kinds of activities i.e. Those that gnaw into this band width and yet don’t get out of the way are those that are abstract. Here are examples of a few such task descriptions –
‘EE4307 work’
‘Sparkz’
‘Progress on FYP’
‘Progess on job search’
‘Do something about..’
Abstract tasks hog band-width, make us feel ‘stressed’, make us sick of day to day existence as we seemingly don’t have time to do anything else..
How can we avoid it?
3 things that come to my mind are –
1) Make actionable tasks: This is the simple to do. For eg: Progress on Job search could be – apply to ABC, BCD and CDE by Saturday. Making it actionable definitely helps.
2) Place actionable tasks in a container based on priority: Sometimes meaningless tasks like transferring photos to a friend can tend to hog bandwidth. Putting them in a low priority box means we only need to get to it when all the other important tasks are done.
3) Plan!: The 1st two are quick fixes, of course. A longer term fix is to plan the week ahead so we are prepared. Sudden tasks that pop up are those that can hog massive amounts of band-width and they often lead to no real result either.(cue: meaningless worries)..
Oh, and one last thing, I’ve learnt not to underestimate the importance of band-width. There is only so much we can do in a day, a week, or even a month..
Let’s learn to say ‘NO!’..
‘Never say yes when you want to say a no’
A Learning a Day 