Good information, John

I am similar to you with many tabs open at the same time. Especially when I am writing and publishing my content. I recommend new members do this through the training as well, you can follow Kyle step-by-step in one tab and work in your website dashboard in another.

Jeff

I am a one task, one tab at a time kind a guy but I suspect it to be due to the fact that I am still learning and remembering how to DO each task. Possibly after a few months maybe I can graduate up to completing 2 tasks and using 2 tabs open any given time.MAC.

Hey John,

Thank you for these tips. I have like 40-something tabs open on Chrome and they are all important. Yes, I procrastinate as I get distracted easily. I need to get into a flow state to finish the tasks on some of these tabs soon, but I don't know how to stay focused properly.

However, I prefer batch-tasking as it makes me laser-focused on specific types of tasks and get those out of the way quicker.

John, this was fire 🔥

I love how you didn’t just talk productivity you gave it soul. That “M = {B, D²}” formula? That’s gold, man. It perfectly captures the balance we’re all chasing: being fully present while still moving the needle across multiple fronts.

I’m definitely a multi-tab guy too WA, Canva, ChatGPT, Pinterest, site editor, music in the background… it’s chaos, but it flows. I think when you find that rhythm, it becomes more like an orchestra than a mess.

Also really appreciated the OCEAN breakdown hadn’t looked at productivity through that lens before, but it makes total sense.

Thanks for sharing your system and philosophy. Posts like this remind me why I’m here.

Shawn

Well John, you've raised several related topics in this interesting post.

In particular productivity as dictated by so called "multi-tasking", "systemic activity" and something you didn't mention, which is usually referred to as "sensual acuity". (Sorry... reading through this comment, I suspect that it should really be a post, but since I've written it like this I'll leave it here for now.)

Starting with my last point first, "sensual acuity" is a way of referring to our preferred, natural, sensual abilities. Sensual acuity skills are broadly grouped into three areas:

Seeing (visual abilities);
Hearing (Aural abilities);
Feeling (often referred to as Kinaesthetic but includes touchy feely, smell and taste).

We are all different in detail, but our preferences tend to dictate the way we learn best, and indeed how we tend to work best.

We all have a preference for either seeing, hearing or feeling skills e.g., in an emergency one or the other tends to be our preferred state of being. We all use all three though at different rates. For example, my natural preferences are seeing, feeling then hearing. So if I suddenly find myself in a room that goes completely dark, and I feel unsafe, I have to be careful to not panic because I can't see. If I want to move around I would likely use my feeling skills first and my hearing last. Even if someone was reliably guiding with their voice it would take me a short time to calm down and follow a voice.

In a normal working environment, we don't normally notice these preferences but they can have a profound impact. Again, using myself as an example, as a firstly "visual" person, if I want to do something today, I have to see indicators for it, to get it done. So I've developed a habit (most certainly instinctively) to automatically place reminders on my desk (or in my search tabs) and work through them systematically. Other people often tell me my desk is a mess... but I know where everything is and because I can see the clues, I know what tasks I intend to complete today.

In addition, I find sound particularly irritating, however good it is to listen to. I guess this may seem a little odd because I spent a large part of my life performing, writing and recording as a musician. However, what counted in terms of my creativity was what I could see first. It meant that I could be creative so long as I was writing music and ideas down.

Anyway...
next I mention "systemic activity". To get anything done we all work a system. We try to complete a series of steps, one after the other, that delivers our desired outcome, whether consciously or not.

Now I'd say I believe that nobody can consciously multi-task.

Our brains can't handle more than one thing consciously at a time.

We are able to create the illusion of multi-tasking because we have a hyper-active subconscious mind that is capable to doing things "when we're not looking." Our brain is designed to maintain a status quo for our lives, i.e., to keep us alive by beating our heart, pumping our lungs and thousands of other useful body maintenance activities.

I suspect this could turn into a book now, but I'll attempt to keep this short (LOL).

The thing is that a large part of our brain handles subconscious activities, some of which we might refer to as habits. These are typically things that we do automatically, often without noticing, but that can be extremely useful or alternatively, not at all useful. Useful or not, we can allow our subconscious mind to freely carry out whatever we want if we wish.

An example of this is that humans are apparently able to drive, and talk on the phone, at the same time. This is an illusion of multi-tasking. In reality, if an emergency crops up, the conscious mind will (hopefully) take over the driving role to avoid an accident. In practice, since there have been many examples of accidents caused by people attempting to talk on a phone and drive at the same time, as you know, using the phone while driving is banned in many countries.

In addition, we can switch consciously between consciously driven activities. An example might be the person who thinks they can multi-task by watching TV and doing the ironing at the same time. In reality, either the ironing suffers or any memory of what was being watched on TV suffers.

So, it really doesn't matter how many search tabs are open. What matters is how they are being used and ideally that they are being used deliberately (i.e., in an order designed to achieve a specific, intentional, outcome. I.e., what matters is the order in which we choose to carry out specific tasks and whether we care about our personal productivity or not.

To be fair, those who don't care about being efficient (some don't care, and that's OK) it's their choice, it really doesn't matter... but please drive carefully!
;-)
Richard