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C O N C E N T R A T E ???

Mr. VK Pedia's blog, that I discovered yesterday has spurred me to post today again. Using the most solemn messages he has urged people to CONCENTRATE.

I personally have always had problems with this word. When I was in class 5th, it so happened that my grandfather was reading a newspaper sitting on a chair beside me while I was reading my textbook. My right hand was simultaneously playing with a pencil. After 10 minutes, my grandfather could no more resist and remarked - "You can't do just one thing at a time; can you?". Years later when I used to study for my engineering entrance with Music blaring from my music system, he repeated that remark to my mom. And even today, while in office I cannot work with only one window open on my desktop. I usually will have a Yahoo! Or GMail window open while I am editing an official document and more often than not I would be composing a mail on these windows while I work on my document simultaneously.

Multitaksing is something I am fond of and love. I multitask even at a higher level - for example I am never working on just one project - while I may be on one project officially, I keep working on my own personal projects. For example I was working on www.gnulinuxclub.org for the past some months (another site that could not take-off was on my mind then), or I just recently worked on changing looks of my blog a few days ago; or more recently I was involved with reviewing the new stuff made by Shubham for Arbit. All this while I was working on my official assignment too (review of IT Infrastructure and Disaster Plan od a leading private bank).

I am sure none of you find this unusual. We all are working on multiple things at a time on the macro level. And some of us (like me) like to work simultaneously on micro activities also. I have observed that many people have the habit of keeping a GMail or Yahoo! window open while they work.

In this context, is concentration still a virtue. It has been scientifically proven that the mind cannot work continuously on one activity. It needs breaks; and as my grandmother says - "Change of work is the best entertainment". So instead of losing/ wasting time in taking those micro-breaks (or losing efficiency by not taking the break at all), why not multi-task, why not dis-concentrate and utilize those breaks and thus boost efficiency?

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