Uni-Tasker

Our office went multi-monitor a few years ago, shortly after the flat panel price crash made it economical for everyone, even the lowliest assistants, to put two or three monitors on their desks, making us all look like masters of the universe trading currency futures.

To the extent there was any thought behind this move to surround us with pixels, that thought went something like this: “In this multi-tasking age we need to craft a desktop cockpit environment that enhances the end-user’s multi-usability by presenting multi-graphical interfaces with an always-on click-operable inter-utility.”

And indeed there was a certain click-operable inter-utility to the set-up, what with my emails open on the left, my internet phone interface to the right, my task list floating above somewhere, and my various documents scattered all over the place. My whole digital life splayed out in full multi-monitor dimensionality in front of me—a data cornucopia!

The problem is I was incapable of resisting the allure of the flashing pixels. With all those windows open and active, something was always flashing, seeking my attention, pulling me away from whatever had distracted me the minute before. I wasn’t getting things done like I used to. More troubling, I wasn’t thinking much either, just lots of pointing, clicking, navigating and noting, signifying nothing.

So I unplugged the extra monitor. I resized my default windows to full screen, so now I can only see one at a time.

That helped, but I have to say it wasn’t enough. It was still too easy to switch back and forth between programs, toggling with the ALT-TAB combo, so I had to take a more drastic step: I returned to the land of paper.

Now I can’t eliminate the computer from my work life, and I don’t want to, but I have come to the realization that my little mind is incapable of multi-tasking and, more importantly, incapable of realizing that it is incapable of multi-tasking. So to avoid getting sucked into the void I have to treat my computer like a limited-purpose tool, basically just a card-catalog to the library of the world and a communication delivery device.

Each time I find something to read, or receive an email I need to read, I print it out. Once I am finished finding and printing, I have a stack of paper I can read offline, preferably far from the blinking allure of my computer screen.

It’s old school, and it’s not environmentally friendly, but I find reading on paper suits my uni-tasking mind very well. I have no problem focusing on one page at a time, and when I look up from my reading material I see a blank wall, which is much more conducive to reflection than a flashing screen.

It helps to have access to a good printer, preferably one that can print out two-sided sheets, as there is so much good stuff to read that transporting it can be a problem.

Another practical problem is typography. Simply put, articles you print from the web look terrible. Many websites, such as Outer Life, are formatted exclusively for the screen and provide no printing tools at all. Those that do allow for printing rarely pay much attention to the formatting.

My solution was to cut-and-paste these articles from the web into Notepad, a program that strips them of their formatting, then cut-and-paste the raw text into a pre-formatted template in my word processor designed to produce easy-to-read text that looks professionally typeset. My template is anchored by Adobe Caslon Pro, a typeface specifically designed to look good when printed (unlike the fonts included with your computer, which are designed to look good on the screen). I widen the side margins so that the column of text I read is a little more than five inches wide, which I find optimal for avoiding eye fatigue. A few search-and-replaces ensure that quotes are curly and dashes are wide enough. All this takes me about a minute per article.

Now I realize we are all in the process of figuring out how to manage the cognitive challenges of the information age, so my challenges with multi-tasking aren’t particularly unique or interesting, and I also realize that my reducing the content of our digital age to a sheaf of personally typeset printed documents is an eccentric response to these challenges, one that probably says more about the limitations of my mind, formed as it was in the days before any monitors, let alone multi-monitors, than it does about computers or the common human condition, but I have to say, leaning back in a reclining chair while leafing through a pile of articles typeset to please my eye, my computer blinking away behind my back, out of sight and out of mind, I feel an inordinate pleasure, as if I’ve recaptured a piece of my mind from the machines.