Multitasking

Yesterday I saw this interesting article. It covered something completely different from what I'm going to point out here, but the first few sentences (quoted below) made me think.

“I have three roles. I code about half time. I'm project manager. And I'm team leader.”

Oh yes, the multitasking. The reason why this intrigued me so much is that I'm currently in a very similar situation. Recently I have been working simultaneously on at least three tasks: system analyst, team leader and project manager. It’s better to put it like this:

• System analyst = concentrate
• Team leader = care for people
• Project manager = do politics

It would be nice if I was working on system analysis on Mondays and Tuesdays and for the rest of the week on these “sociological” tasks, but of course: with management it’s clear that every 10 minutes someone will interrupt me. That means that maximum time to concentrate is approximately 10 minutes and it is not hard to imagine how deep I get into the matter in that time…

The other important thing is that team leading really is a full time job. Everything else you do is taking the time away from people management and issues that arise during project execution.
The project can survive without my analysis but without team leader (not necessarily me) – it’s doubtful.

Anyway, multitasking is bad idea per se, but a task that requires concentration on one single thing in combination with management is a horrible idea.
Now when I think about it, it’s not clear how am I able to get any work done. It’s a mystery.