Skip to main content

Jim Grisanzio: Successful CEOs don't multi-task

Of course not - that's what they want their computer to do for them.

Case in point: I don't want to have to visit 500 web sites to get my news ; Newsgator - do it for me.

I don't want to worry about downloading this 100MB file; BitTorrent do it for me.

I read my weblogs in the morning and in the evening, when I'm not doing much else and want to catch up on things. During the day, I try to stay focused on one thing at a time (in fact, that's a pretty good new year resolution - and for those who know me , it'll be tough) - staying focused on one thing is hard when you've got IM, support calls, emails amid 10 other projects that need to be worked on.

A few years back, one piece of advice ( I think it was actually in Dynamics of Software Development by Jim McCarthy) was to only check email once every x hours. The big problem now is that there's so much more email than ever before (and that's not including spam)- that it's easy to miss something.

My solution (and it takes a lot of discipline ) is to ignore the emails that don't directly impact me. If it's that important, I'll read it on one of the feeds I get or someone will resend it directly to me. I'm trying to get to that level of "simplicity" where as Bill Jensen suggests, delete 75% of your email.

Thanks Jim, for pointing to that Fortune article and keeping it focused.

Jim Grisanzio: Successful CEOs don't multi-task

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Elevating Project Specifications with Three Insightful ChatGPT Prompts

For developers and testers, ChatGPT, the freely accessible tool from OpenAI, is game-changing. If you want to learn a new programming language, ask for samples or have it convert your existing code. This can be done in Visual Studio Code (using GitHub CoPilot) or directly in the ChatGPT app or web site.  If you’re a tester, ChatGPT can write a test spec or actual test code (if you use Jest or Cypress) based on existing code, copied and pasted into the input area. But ChatGPT can be of huge value for analysts (whether system or business) who need to validate their needs. There’s often a disconnect between developers and analysts. Analysts complain that developers don’t build what they asked for or ask too many questions. Developers complain that analysts haven’t thought of obvious things. In these situations, ChatGPT can be a great intermediary. At its worst, it forces you to think about and then discount obvious issues. At best, it clarifies the needs into documented requirements. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Respect

Respect is something humans give to each other through personal connection. It’s the bond that forms when we recognize something—or someone—as significant, relatable, or worthy of care. This connection doesn’t have to be limited to people. There was an  article  recently that described the differing attitudes towards AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini (formerly Bard). Some people treat them like a standard search while others form a sort of personal relationship — being courteous, saying “please” and “thank you”. Occasionally, people share extra details unrelated to their question, like, ‘I’m going to a wedding. What flower goes well with a tuxedo?’ Does an AI “care” how you respond to it? Of course not — it reflects the patterns it’s trained on. Yet our interaction shapes how these tools evolve, and that influence is something we should take seriously. Most of us have all expressed frustration when an AI “hallucinates”. Real or not, the larger issue is that we have hi...
Post a Comment
Read more

When A Machine Starts To Care

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke (1962)  I first used that quote when I was starting out in the tech industry. Back then, it was a way to illustrate just how fast and powerful computers had become. Querying large datasets in seconds felt magical—at least to those who didn’t build them.  Today, we’re facing something even more extraordinary. Large Language Models (LLMs) can now carry on conversations that approach human-level fluency. Clarke’s quote applies again. And just as importantly, many researchers argue that LLMs meet—or at least brush up against—the criteria of the Turing Test.  We tend to criticize LLMs for their “hallucinations,” their sometimes-confident inaccuracies. But let’s be honest: we also complain when our friends misremember facts or recount things inaccurately. This doesn’t excuse LLMs—it simply highlights that the behavior isn’t entirely alien. In some ways, it mirrors our own cognitive limits....
Post a Comment
Read more