Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
fix typo
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
  • Loading branch information
casutton committed Jul 9, 2017
1 parent 9c38a46 commit f2c258b
Showing 1 changed file with 1 addition and 1 deletion.
2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion _posts/2017-07-01-context-switching.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ A context switch is a necessary result of multitasking. If a computer is pretend

So it is in your mind. When you switch between different tasks, it takes a while to remember the other context: what it was that you were supposed to be doing on the new task, why you thought it was a good idea, and so on. This is why you're not as efficient when you first start a new task as when you've been thinking about it for a while. This has led to the deluge of self-help articles, some of which I'm sure you've seen, about how mental multitasking is a bad idea. It takes time to switch contexts.

But as a professor <small>([in the US sense](http://www.theexclusive.org/2013/08/academic-ranks-in-us-and-uk.html))</small>, especially leading a research group, context switching cannot be avoided. The nature of the job requires us to make progress on many different types of tasks each day, from answering a student question about a problem set, to planning for the curriculum next year, to reading a paper related to one research project, to an impromptu meeting with a colleague about faculty hiring for next stpring, to a scheduled meeting with a PhD student about a different research project. One of my mentors liked to joke, "Professors are stateless" (another computing metaphor). The reason that we seem stateless is that it takes some time for us to remember the previous context. Not only does it take time to context switch, but it is also a bit disorienting. A colleague once told me that the part of being a professor that they disliked the most was having to context switch many times a day.
But as a professor <small>([in the US sense](http://www.theexclusive.org/2013/08/academic-ranks-in-us-and-uk.html))</small>, especially leading a research group, context switching cannot be avoided. The nature of the job requires us to make progress on many different types of tasks each day, from answering a student question about a problem set, to planning for the curriculum next year, to reading a paper related to one research project, to an impromptu meeting with a colleague about faculty hiring for next spring, to a scheduled meeting with a PhD student about a different research project. One of my mentors liked to joke, "Professors are stateless" (another computing metaphor). The reason that we seem stateless is that it takes some time for us to remember the previous context. Not only does it take time to context switch, but it is also a bit disorienting. A colleague once told me that the part of being a professor that they disliked the most was having to context switch many times a day.

People sometimes ask me how I handle context switching. I have a few strategies. One is a bit embarrasing, but I will tell you anyway. Perhaps I made this a long post to drive people away before I revealed the embarrassing one.

Expand Down

0 comments on commit f2c258b

Please sign in to comment.