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« Modafinil and ADD | Main | Monday Folly: Don't try this at home! »

March 27, 2006

Comments

Jim Pfrommer

Are you saying I can't go read your blog while I'm trying to knock out discharge summaries of folks who went home while I was off at a Speaker Training conference...
I mean I ought to be able to multitask at least Discharge Summaries, with or without a morning dose of modafinil.
So, I hear you have mind mapping in your book, and that's good enough for me, I'm ordering...

Richard Petty

Well you can certainly walk out onto the ice and wrestle with a stimulating blog and your summaries, but won't you be denying yourself the pleasure of one or other of them????

I wish that more people knew how to Mindmap: I've been teaching it to students and residents since around 1980, and I've used maps to construct innumerable papers and some books. Even though the empirical research is not great, it certainly works for me too!

Jim Pfrommer

I guess I just bought into the prevailing American Culture when I assumed to "multitask" was to be efficient. I don't truely believe humans actually multitask in the sense a computer processor can. I say it's more like rapid sequential processing.
Actually, I tend to think of Discharge Summaries as something that simply must be gotten out of the way. If I attempt to do my 'best' on each one, I can have perfectionism kick in and get hung up about even getting them done.

I will be more aware of truely immersing myself in in a given task, and not getting "spread too thin."

That's so great that you have been aware of mind mapping for so long. I just discovered it after getting a Tablet PC. Actually the Tablet makes some of Tony Buzzan's recommendations difficult, but it is balanced by the ability to keep all electronic documents in one place and endless revision.

I believe I have gone too far as I experiment with the utility of mind maps, and probably have several that would be just as well served by my previous linear, collapsing computer outline style. Only with real immersion and trying them on everything will I have a chance to find out the role they will play in the organization of my mental life.

Ever since reading a book by the veterinarian Allen M. Schoen, I have carried a vial of Bach's Rescue Remedy in my napsack. Imagine my surprise when I learned you had looked at the flower essences too !

Richard Petty

There's a decent literature on what goes on during multi-tasking. There was a good paper looking at Aplysia feeding behavior, that came from a group at Mount Sinai last year, suggesting that multitasking doesn't involve lots of modules, but a shift in the entire behavioral network.

There's also a German paper form last year with the unsurprising finding that one of the big problems for people suffering from schizophrenia is an inability to multitask.

There also seem to be genuine gender differences in the ability to multi-task, that have been found across the few species that have been studied.

And yes, avoid the trap of perfectionism: it used to so paralyze me that my mentor finally took my PhD away from me and submitted it himself!!

Richard Petty

P.S. What software do you use for Mind Mapping?

I use both Conceptdraw and Inspiration for different projects.

Jim Pfrommer

Oh, even more to add to my reading list...

Wow, your perfectionism had a high cost. Reminds me of a little deal I went through with Patrick Carnes on an Extended Care Program for sexual addictions I had put together from the ground up...

My mind mapping is with MindJet's Mindmanager, v6 Pro. It implements the pen input on the Tablet computer very nicely. I will check out the other programs you mention.

Richard Petty

Maybe I should have said that he submitted my PhD on my behalf....

I would be interested to hear more about the Carnes project: I've not been totally convinced by his books, though I could easily be persuaded. As you will read in Healing, Meaning and Purpose, I've extended the notion of Reward Deficiency, which should more accurately be termed "Salience Disruption Syndrome," to include addictions, sexual deviance, attention deficit and impulse control problems. All of which seem to be driven by similar biochemical, psychological and social and environmental factors.

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