Now what was I saying before the phone rang? Oh yes, I was talking about frazzing.
New words are being coined all the time, and most don’t last, but this is my latest favourite. It means frantic, ineffective multitasking — in other words, trying to do everything at once and screwing it all up. One really nice thing about this word is that it fits so neatly with an existing one: Frazzing leaves you frazzled. Perfect.
The other nice thing about it is it describes a real problem, one we need a word for because it’s too common and it’s bad for us.
One recent personal example sticks in my head. Driving back from a morning event in Ottawa to my home in Kingston, I pulled off at a roadside service centre just in time to gas up, grab a sandwich and be ready for a scheduled phone interview. All went well until, thinking the call was about finished, I was reminded that we had agreed to discuss two topics related to two separate articles I was working on.
The e-mail setting up the phone call had come while I was in the midst of something else, I forgot there were two topics on the agenda, so I hadn’t brought my notes on the second one and hadn’t allowed enough time for the call.
A recent Wall Street Journal article showed me I’m not alone. Headed The Type A Bathroom, it described the gadgets some New York high-fliers use to take calls, read e-mail and check stock quotes while in their home bathrooms. No wonder videophones haven’t caught on. I confess I carry my cordless phone everywhere during business hours, but really — e-mail? Browsing the Web on your bathroom mirror? Is there no refuge left?
We blame a lot of the problems that frazzing causes on other things. Cellphone use, for one. There’s widespread pressure to ban cellphone use while driving. Those arguing for this are mistaking the symptom for the disease.
People who oppose banning cellphone use in cars often point out that drivers talk to their passengers all the time, so why shouldn’t they carry on a phone conversation? (I’m assuming a hands-free device. You can’t drive with one hand and hold the phone with the other — you need a hand for your coffee.)
That argument forgets the content of the conversation. It’s the urgent, crisis-mode calls that distract drivers. In other words, it’s the frazzing, not the cellphone.
Recent postings about frazzing on various blogs advise defences like only reading e-mail a couple of times a day. I confess I can’t cut it down that much, but I do find that when I need to concentrate, shutting off e-mail helps.
Most of the suggested defenses against frazzing will get you only so far, though.
The fundamental problem is having too much to do. For years now, most of us have been continually asked to do more with less. We’re told new technology helps us keep up with the demands, and in a way it does.
It’s not the technology’s fault that we simply aren’t built to do a dozen things at once. The only real answer — if you’re in a position to do it — is to tell the people making those demands that they’ll just have to wait.
