Monday

A new week, a chance to turn that blank page into a word salad of hopes and dreams. Or another manic Monday, filled with fires to put out, people to scream at, and make-up work to be done. This is the theme of today's newsletter: one thing versus another. Do we know which is better, mono vs. multitasking? Plus Rock Rivals from the 80s: You might not know they were rivals (we didn’t) and who won.

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🤘We are here every day, and every minute you spend with us sends ripples of gratitude through our souls! 🤘

The debate over whether multitasking works has been ongoing for years. Most of the arguments I’ve heard suggest we don’t get as much work done multitasking as we do when we work on one thing at a time. I have questions...

If monotasking worked as well as it has been written about, why do the numbers for multitasking and distracted work continue to rise? Why does it seem that there are twice as many apps that want your attention than there are focus and deep work apps? Will we change work in the future and be a more monotask working group?

The NYT Mag highlights a story from earlier in the year with another one of our favorites, Cal Newport, and in the interview with David Marchese, Newport talks about his new book called Slow Work, due out in 2024. In this work and Newport’s work in general, he argues in detail about what you lose when you multitask and gain with deep work. Marchese does a good pushback in this article and discusses how a modern workroom can follow the path of slow and deep work; in the end, Marchese says we all have managers, and managers want more time, not less. Newport responds by talking about the outdated manager model in the digital world. Citing the Peter Drucker management principles from the 60s may have had their day. The models will have to change, and another well-researched point Newport suggests is how long it takes society to catch up to the massive shifts in technology and the digital workplace we continue to go through. He uses the example of moving from horses to cars and the decades it took to figure out how to build the cars, use the cars, change the streets and the infrastructure to be able to use the cars, and so on.

When Newport describes the value and the quality you can achieve with the slow work mindset, he identified three principles:

He makes an interesting case, and you could make plenty of arguments either way, depending on many other variables. We might have to wait for the book for that one.

Even in a digital world, there is a Before Slack and an After Slack moment, and with today’s tech, that genie isn’t going back into that bottle. If email replaced the fax and the phone, and instant messaging now allows a client to ping a service provider whenever they want, what client will say, "No – I don't want that?"

Something else that isn't talked about in many of the conversations around multitasking is the new competition it can produce. I know this because I am in the competition. In tech, especially business tech, many companies need other companies and consultants to help them set up, run, and maintain certain types of technology. A consultant who is available 24/7 to their clients will get more business. The consultant who always follows up, gets the jobs done and uses all the technology they can get their hands on to do it usually wins more business. If you ask a lot of small and mid-sized businesses if they want dependability over premium quality, most are looking for dependability.

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Many favorites have been cycling through the With A Shout newsletters this month and, today, continues that trend. Last week, I talked about the podcast, indieCAST and we went deep on whether a music critique should hold back criticism to allow a new band to grow. Today, that same music critic has brought back a feature he wrote a book about previously. It's called Rivals Revisited, and last week, Steven Hyden wrote his first rival piece on R.E.M. vs. The Replacements. It's a tremendous piece, especially if you grew up in the 80s and love either band. I grew up in the 80s, loved both the bands, and had no idea there was a rivalry or beef?!

The whole piece is worth reading, but if you want the condensed version, I’ll let this quote from the piece sum it up.

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Words like truth, wash through this song.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

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🤘We are here every day, and every minute you spend with us sends ripples of gratitude through our souls! 🤘

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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