Fantastic essay on the way that the tools we use shape us.

I sketch almost all the parts I make. This sort of back of the envelope scribbling is very different from precise engineering drawings – I change my mind all the time, scrubbing over the lines again and again. Drawing like this is a wonderful tool for thinking, for exploring different solutions, rejecting bad ones and developing good ones. I also use Solidworks, and I can see the power of CAD programs like this, though I still prefer drawing. Drawing parts is actually very similar to drawing cartoons – scrubbing over lines, trying to make the idea clear and concise, thinking up endless variations and embellishments.

Drawing parts does depend on experience. I don’t remember drawing my machines much as a child, and when I started making things again after leaving Cambridge I still did very little drawing, working out the detail by trial and error. There were so many factors, particularly with moving parts, that drawings didn’t help with – will a lever be rigid enough, will a spring counteract a weight, will a grub screw be enough to hold a pulley on a shaft, will a motor be powerful enough, will it stop quickly enough. The only way to find out things like this was to try them. There is something intuitively obvious that it must be a good idea to make use of as many of the senses as possible (smells and sounds can also be very useful in identifying a problem), but in practice trying everything out is very slow. With experience, it’s much quicker to solve design problems on paper…

My cluttered workshop, particularly the comprehensive stores of bits I’ve salvaged or otherwise acquired, is also vital to my working process. Browsing through my stores, I often think of a better way of making a part, and sometimes ways of adapting something I’ve already got. The stores and the tools are literally an extension of my brain, a physical version of a memory map. Anything I can’t find in my stores will be in one of my many vast catalogues. Rural sheds may seem quaint but they are no longer cut off from the world. Modern distribution means I can get anything within 24 hours.

(Via Matt Jones.)

And so can you.

Yes, you. Stop sneering, and give this a try…

Time yourself doing the following two actions:

1. Spell aloud, letter by letter, “Jewelry is shiny” at the same time as you write your full name.

2. Spell aloud, letter by letter, “Jewelry is shiny” and then, after you are done with that, write your name.

It took me 18 seconds to do the tasks concurrently, and 8 seconds to the tasks sequentially. However, if you practice spelling “Jewelry is shiny” aloud for a couple minutes, it’ll become automatic. You’ll no longer have to think to do it, and you’ll be able to complete the two tasks at the same time without incurring the switching cost.

What’s the lesson to be learned? If you want a boost in productivity, try rethinking how you multitask so that you only ever need to think about one thing at a time.

I came out about the same. How about you?

As they say, read the whole thing.

(Bonus Science Friday: In the comments, there’s a link to some of the evidence that our ability to switch between tasks is much more limited than we subjectively believe: Is Multitasking More Efficient? Shifting Mental Gears Costs Time, Especially when Shifting to Less Familiar Tasks.)