“How to manage intellectuals. I, nerds and geeks "(free electronic version of the book)

Hello, habrozhiteli! We decided that it was right not only to sell books, but also to share with them. A review of the books themselves was here . In the post itself, an excerpt "Attention Deficit Disorder among Geeks" and the book itself.



The main idea of ​​the book “Weapons of the South” is extremely simple and at the same time very strange. What would happen if during the Civil War of the North with the South the South was equipped with a whole bunch of AK-47? If you formulate the contents of the entire book briefly, they would win. And it’s easy! The author - Harry Turtleldav - decided not to use time travel and other favorite science fiction goodies; he just writes like this: “Hooray! South won! ABOUT! And what will they do now with all this slavery? ”



I am sure that people interested in the Civil War of the North and South will like this book very much, but it is not at all suitable for those who, like me, suffer from attention deficit disorder geeks. During the reading, this harmless feature of mine manifested itself fully every time it became clear that a detailed description of the lifestyle or moral principles of those times in the conditions of the alternative scenario of the Civil War would follow ... And now I am falling asleep ... ZzZzZzzZZzz.



Actually, “Arms of the South” is a pleasant reading matter, nevertheless I repeatedly scrolled forward: “Okay, everything is clear. How long will this chapter last? ”As I approached the end of the book, it became clear that time travelers who had arrived from the future would no longer appear and reconcile North and South with the help of some kind of miraculous futuristic gadget. Eh ... I was disappointed. Yes. Exactly! Of course, I am glad that President Lee learned a lesson and began to abolish slavery himself, but ... where are the lasers? I beg of you…



Hey people! I'm a geek! I need a lightning-fast developing plot expressed in short, capacious and energetic phrases. Give me the Copeland, give me Kelvin and Hobbs, give me Asimov, give me the Guardians. I need these kinds of stories, because I suffer terribly from the Geek Attention Deficit Disorder.



If you have not yet closed this book, it means that you also suffer from some form of geek attention deficit disorder or other similar mental disorder. Let's check it out!



Set aside your book right now, get up and go to your desktop. How many different things did you do when you were here for the last time? Personally, I had the Slack messenger open, I listened to music from Spotifaya, then I was logged in to several shared files from different teams, I had Chrome open with three tabs, where I watched trading on E * TRADE, adjusted Wordpress server and read about box office movies over the weekend. And that's not all! I had iMessage and Tweetbot open, from which information about my friends ’fresh and exceptionally successful cookies flowed joyfully, and two windows were still open where I recorded thoughts on the latest integration in the form of various task lists. Yes! I'm going to rewrite this chapter again!



People, this is not multitasking. This is a severe case of Attention Deficit Disorder. I am not at all able to work at a computer until I have at least five tasks at a time. If you count about as many different things as you do with me, then you probably also suffer from this Syndrome. This completely exceptional Syndrome!

Diagnosis "Geek"

My mother was the first to diagnose a Geek Attention Deficit Disorder. That was in the late 90s. Once she brought me dinner to my room (I'm a geek), where I joyfully typed something to my friends in some primitive chat on my IBM XT (I'm super-geek), listened to music (most likely, Flock of Seagulls, I same geek of level ++) and watched "Back to the Future" with the sound turned off (true giiiiiik!). Mom commented on what was happening like this: “How can you focus your attention on something when all this happens at your place?” I answered her: “Mom, I can’t concentrate if there isn’t all that noise around me!”



The presence of a geek attention deficit disorder in your life and its severity level directly depends on how you interact with an avalanche of information coming to you through all channels to quench your powerful thirst for new technologies. Most likely, you have three ways:



1. "You are logged out." You do not have a TV and it is unlikely that you read this chapter at all.



2. You receive content in moderation. When I ask you to calculate how many windows you have open on your desktop, you either say: “One. My mail client to read inbox, or set yourself a reminder to count windows after reading this chapter. Most likely, you have a daily glider, to which you can reach with your hand from the place where you are currently sitting.



3. You get content “like from a hose”. Browser tab, messenger tab, music all day and TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER. Geek Attention Deficit Disorder! Nice to meet you!



The presence of a geek attention deficit disorder in your friends is also quite easy to check. Here's a simple test: ask your friend for permission to sit at his computer and start raking up the trash on his desktop. Move the icon here, resize the window there. If your friend is calmly watching you poke around on his desktop, then most likely he does not have a geek attention deficit disorder. But if he scratches the back of his head with anxiety and starts to get nervous when you move the icon 12 pixels to the right, then the geek attention deficit syndrome clearly lives here. Anyway, hands off his computer!

Context switch

It may seem to you that the key competency behind the geek attention deficit disorder is multitasking, and it's true. Geek Attention Deficit Disorders are surprisingly multitasking, but this is not their primary ability. Their main ability is the ability to switch content.



The idea of ​​context switching is the key to understanding geek attention deficit disorder. This is a pretty simple concept. In order to focus on something, you need to spend some time and a certain amount of energy so that your brain enters the correct mental state. Remember how you usually read the New York Times on Saturday morning. You have your coffee, your comfortable pajamas, your sofa, and now you instantly delve into what is written there, whatever that is. This is your context.



Now imagine that in the middle of the article you are reading, I will rip the newspaper out of your hands and turn on CNN, where absolutely by chance there is a report about the same thing that you just read about.



What? Heck! What happened now?



You have just experienced a context switch. It wasn’t particularly terrible, because on TV the same story was going on that you read about in the newspaper. It just was another media outlet - television talking heads and the annoying news line at the bottom of the screen.



And yet it is annoying, right? Forget why I pulled the newspaper out of your hands. Now I am talking about a mental shift from the reading process to the viewing process. Such a switch usually takes time. You need time for this, but the average carrier of the Geek Attention Deficit Disorder will simply notice a switch of context to itself, and that’s it. In fact, it is very likely that right at that moment he is digesting all of today's news coming to him from various random channels.



The carrier of the geek attention deficit disorder differs from other people in that its context switching proceeds imperceptibly. The geek’s mental muscle, which leads to a context switch, is very well developed, because he has been switching his attention between different unrelated data streams all his life, trying to extract meaning from the colossal amount of information noise in order to hear what is important to him.



Anyone can be multi-tasking. But carriers of geek Attention Deficit Disorder do this surprisingly deftly. They participate in an endless quest for high-speed receipt and processing of information.

Effectively Using Geek Attention Deficit Disorder

I write about the geek attention deficit disorder, as if it is a characteristic sign of freaks obsessed with information ... in fact, it is. How else can you cope with a world in which there is constant pressure from the media? You become very skilled in controlling the flow of information. Here I have more good news for you.

• People who are not affected by geek attention deficit disorder believe that carriers of this syndrome cannot focus their attention because (you just look at us!) Their attention is scattered. Please stop clicking on different devices! My head starts to hurt from you. This is not true! Bearers of geek Attention Deficit Disorder have an amazing ability to focus their attention on what they themselves have chosen to focus on. Although, of course, this is not our constant and natural state, and (yes!) Sometimes it takes us more time than other people to get into the Zone (more information about the Zone in chapter 36), but when we are there, ... wow! Wow!
• The Internet is designed for those with a geek attention deficit disorder. Whether it’s terrific brief information outbursts escaping from all of your many news feeds, or an exponentially growing number of applications that just want to get a “bit” of your time, in either case the Internet knows that there is a geek attention deficit disorder. He knows that any good website and any good application can be developed in such a way that it answers not the question: “Do you want to know something?”, But the question: “How long can I have your attention?”
• Geek Attention Deficit Disorder can have a positive effect on your career. Have you ever worked in a startup? Ever released software? What are the last weeks before the release of the product? We call them "firefighting exercises," because everyone runs around in circles like crazy and doing all kinds of random and thoughtless shit. In such a situation, a geek attention deficit disorder becomes an ideal disadvantage because it reduces the energy costs of context switching.
• If the building you are working in is in flames, run and find a person with Attention Deficit Disorder on your floor. You will not only learn from him where the emergency exits are located; most likely, he will give you some useful tips on how to avoid smoke poisoning, as well as provide an extensive array of data on the probability of survival in case of fires in multi-story buildings. How is it even possible that this junior software engineer can know all this? Who knows ... Maybe he read it on Wikipedia two years ago. Or maybe one of his close virtual friend from New York works as a firefighter. What does it really matter now? It can save your life or, more likely, provide you with a lot of useful facts before you both roast like chips.

Negative sides

I'm talking about geek attention deficit disorder as some kind of cute pink flaw. However, he has some negative sides.



Firstly, to reveal your personal mode of assimilation of the surrounding world is a huge job, and (excuse me!) You will definitely lose some information. It will annoy you, but at the same time it will stimulate you every second to look for "your next great thing."



Secondly, to others you will often seem to be a know-it-all. Try not to be a know-it-all. In fact, most people do not know all this random useless info, all these various news, current events, little-known facts and complex mathematical formulas. And these people are quite happy without them. If you are “full to the brim” with fresh and excellent information, this does not mean that everyone wants to hear it.



You will constantly lack patience when interacting with those who choose a different lifestyle - different from the lifestyle of the carrier of the geek Attention Deficit Disorder. From time to time you will try to share your fractional wisdom with someone in order to give up your hand after about four minutes, when it becomes clear: “Damn it! They just don’t understand it! ”There is a possibility that they understood everything, and you simply suffer from a disease, due to which the concentration of your attention is expressed in microseconds.



Regardless of whether you suffer from a geek attention deficit disorder or not, you need to understand one thing. He will not pass! The generation that invented the Geek Attention Deficit Disorder in the 80s and 90s of the last century has already been replaced by a generation that did not know the world without this syndrome, and something else would annoy them.



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