Recently I discovered a TED talk by Tim Harford that inspired me. He explains the concept of slow multitasking as a creative tool. In a nutshell it is working on different projects over a long period of time. The projects could go on for weeks, months, years depending on how much time they need to be finished. Some never finish and that is also okay.
I love this concept! My whole life I was struggling to limit my interests because I though you can only be good at something if I focus on it fully. The way ordinary careers are structured by finishing school, selecting a profession and pursuing one path until retirement always freaked me out. I wanted to see life in a continuous exploration. Throughout my studies and later my work days I had a lot of ideas and interests popping up in my head. I thought I could become a piano player, a painter, a photographer, a surfer, a writer or a machine learning pioneer. I wanted to be everything but I stopped exploring the sideways because I thought these activities would be misleading and stealing time from my actual tasks that I have to do to become a better developer.
Life is not limited to one career path and a job title. With the concept of slow multitasking I no longer feel like have to limit myself and instead I can can allocate time and energy for projects I am interested in. My best example is this blog. Because for being creative it is not important if you think about doing one certain thing the rest of your life. Instead it is important that you start doing something in the first place and let your passion drive you on the way.
Think about it. What will your passion project be for the next weeks? And why don't just start today?
All the best,
Christine