We are rapidly losing our alertness. And multi-tasking is to blame. Instead of having all our wits, we are becoming half-wits.

Productivity and progress is defined by how much activity we can pack into a day. When I was in the building game, constructing a concrete wall was the perfect example of sequential activity. The shape of the wall had to be ‘formed up’ using timber, plywood and steel. This then gave the steel fixer somewhere to locate his reinforcing steel. Then after the steel has been fixed and the formwork completed around it, the concrete can then be poured.

Then the concrete had to be allowed to harden before the formwork is taken off to reveal the concrete wall. These separate activities followed one another. Like night follows day.

Well, this was until the multi-taskers deemed this restrictive. They came up with the concept of slip forming. This allowed the formwork, steel fixing, concrete pouring and hardening of the concrete to happen all at the SAME time. This operation has to be seen to be believed. A bunch of construction works clambering on top of one another to allow the hydraulic jacks to push the formwork along incrementally, exposing the brand new stiffened concrete walls behind it- millimetre by millimetre.

It is not a crime to drive along at 70 km/hr in a 80km zone. But it is a rightly a criminal offence if the reason is a phone suck to an ear.

I was driving along Silverwater Road (80km zone) one day and I was stuck behind this car going steadily at 70km. It was only as I pulled over to overtake that I saw the reason why. The lady driver was holding her iphone in front of her face and having an earnest conversation into the mouth piece. Her car was stuck on auto-pilot. She did not offer a glance at the cars overtaking her. I think her wits were spread thin – barely covering all the different activities that she was attempting to do all at the same time.

One of the things I like about racing a bike is that I need all my wits with me. It is concentration on the matter at hand. No thought of getting more things done while I am on the red line holding a wheel like it is the key to heaven. Just one thought – Racing.

It is no place for half-wits.

Think of all the times when you were feeling the best. Remember being ‘in the zone’?. What about when you were so engrossed that ‘time stood so still’- but was over like a flash?

I bet these were the times when you were just concentrating on just one thing at a time.

Then think of all the times that you were stressed out and highly strung. Were they times when you were trying to do too much or when you were overwhelmed by how much had to be done?

I don’t know about you – but I just prefer one step at a time…