h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sure this isn't just my brain. Maybe it's everyone's brain? Maybe some more than others?

When I have to switch away from doing one task to another, it feels to me like such a mental wrench! The analogy(s) that have sprung into my mind are like a stylus/needle when it lands on the outer rim of the record, swaying about until it finds the lead-in groove. Or a nut / finely threaded metal ring that you have to turn many revolutions before it finds the thread on the bolt or shaft.

It can take me minutes, but more usually hours. It can be unpleasant work tasks such as starting on a report, or it can be pleasant personal ones such as getting around to writing this post on hootoo, or indeed physical tasks that need doing! It doesn't make much difference to me- I just find it exceptionally difficult to switch focus from one thing to another (and then sometimes just as hard to keep that focus from drifting).

I'm wondering what evolutionary advantage such a thing could hold, if any? Even caveman must've had to switch focus from one thing to another - hunting to preparing food or story telling... Should us humans not be able to switch between giving our full focus from one thing to another fairly quickly?

Or maybe it is just me

With me, it depends whether it was me deciding to switch tasks. If so, I'll probably engage with it. If it was someone else's idea, then I probably find it as difficult as you do.

Good analogy

I vary as well - some tasks I can get absorbed in, so it is challenging to emerge from that world if I'm interrupted, whereas other tasks are more interruptable. I tend to have a 'palate cleanser' that I use to help with transitions from one task to another, eg looking at h2g2 or checking the work noticeboard just for a minute or so.

I think a lot depends on whether I changed because of a decision I made, or an intrusion like a phone call or someone knocking at the door. We have some angry people in the Park, and I fear when I hear that knock. The phone calls are from people who know that I'm over 65, but they know nothing else about me. Many of them have accents so thick that I have to spend time asking them to repeat, and even spell what they are calling me about