WRITING WORKSHOP: Task-Switching
Jan. 14th, 2020 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dewlineThis is what I wrote for tonight's workshop session. I told them I'd probably be posting it here, so...
This morning was an exercise in task-switching. Why “task-switching”? There were four things I needed to pay attention to before I could leave the house. Also, I’ve come to the conclusion that “multi-tasking” is a word that ought to die out of popular usage as it describes the thing it was meant for badly. If at all.
The four tasks in question were these: First, pay attention to the news reports on CBC Radio One. These included not just the local newscasts, but also national programming. On weekday mornings, this usually means The Current, with its new full-time host Matt Galloway and Q, CBC’s main cultural/entertainment news and interviews radio show.
The Current is CBC’s main weekday current-affairs programme, for anyone not familiar.
Galloway’s just been poached from Toronto’s morning newscast team, which means he’s already familiar to most of the people living in our country’s biggest city. Add in Podcast Playlist, which he’s co-hosted from its first airdate, and he’s somewhat familiar to the rest of Anglophone Canada.
Q is hosted these days by Tom Power from Newfoundland Island. Like the first two full-time hosts before him, he’s been a professional musician for at least a few years of his adult life. He does have a tendency to collaborate on-air with other musicians who show up. Not every time, as I expect there are ground rules each guest has about that sort of thing, but when it happens it can be fun to listen to.
(Weird thing I just learned from the Omniglot language blog while writing this: a person who’s perpetually interested in news and/or scandal used to be called a “quidnunc” in some circles. The word is a modification of the Latin phrase “quid nunc?”, translated into modern English as “what now?” I certainly qualify where interest in news is concerned, but unless I’m directly affected by the latter, I don’t feel a need to know of scandal. Not that my attitude stopped it from showing up anyway.)
Task two is the main chore of every weekday: find a day job. Which means checking the incoming e-mail for subscribed job alerts from Indeed, Workopolis, Jobilico, the Federal Job Bank and a couple of other places. Then, move on to checking a short list of “help wanted” websites I’ve been maintaining over the years. After that, I e-mail people likely to provide additional leads and advice. Going to Pen and Paper Workshop could count as an offshoot of that last. Maybe?
Item Three: Trying to rediscover where I’d hidden three issues of a magazine on graphic design called ImagineFX - the “FX” for “effects” - from myself. It’s a magazine I regularly buy because of advice on how to get this or that visual design issue solved, and even if the software under discussion has moved beyond my ability to afford it for now, the magazine functions as an inspirational art gallery every month.
Fourth chore: writing this entry for tonight’s workshop. Which seems to have gone well enough since I’ve just finished it for you now. Thanks, everyone!
This morning was an exercise in task-switching. Why “task-switching”? There were four things I needed to pay attention to before I could leave the house. Also, I’ve come to the conclusion that “multi-tasking” is a word that ought to die out of popular usage as it describes the thing it was meant for badly. If at all.
The four tasks in question were these: First, pay attention to the news reports on CBC Radio One. These included not just the local newscasts, but also national programming. On weekday mornings, this usually means The Current, with its new full-time host Matt Galloway and Q, CBC’s main cultural/entertainment news and interviews radio show.
The Current is CBC’s main weekday current-affairs programme, for anyone not familiar.
Galloway’s just been poached from Toronto’s morning newscast team, which means he’s already familiar to most of the people living in our country’s biggest city. Add in Podcast Playlist, which he’s co-hosted from its first airdate, and he’s somewhat familiar to the rest of Anglophone Canada.
Q is hosted these days by Tom Power from Newfoundland Island. Like the first two full-time hosts before him, he’s been a professional musician for at least a few years of his adult life. He does have a tendency to collaborate on-air with other musicians who show up. Not every time, as I expect there are ground rules each guest has about that sort of thing, but when it happens it can be fun to listen to.
(Weird thing I just learned from the Omniglot language blog while writing this: a person who’s perpetually interested in news and/or scandal used to be called a “quidnunc” in some circles. The word is a modification of the Latin phrase “quid nunc?”, translated into modern English as “what now?” I certainly qualify where interest in news is concerned, but unless I’m directly affected by the latter, I don’t feel a need to know of scandal. Not that my attitude stopped it from showing up anyway.)
Task two is the main chore of every weekday: find a day job. Which means checking the incoming e-mail for subscribed job alerts from Indeed, Workopolis, Jobilico, the Federal Job Bank and a couple of other places. Then, move on to checking a short list of “help wanted” websites I’ve been maintaining over the years. After that, I e-mail people likely to provide additional leads and advice. Going to Pen and Paper Workshop could count as an offshoot of that last. Maybe?
Item Three: Trying to rediscover where I’d hidden three issues of a magazine on graphic design called ImagineFX - the “FX” for “effects” - from myself. It’s a magazine I regularly buy because of advice on how to get this or that visual design issue solved, and even if the software under discussion has moved beyond my ability to afford it for now, the magazine functions as an inspirational art gallery every month.
Fourth chore: writing this entry for tonight’s workshop. Which seems to have gone well enough since I’ve just finished it for you now. Thanks, everyone!
