Multitasking

It’s difficult to know who coined the term “multi tasking,” but I’ll wager he was drunk when he did it. According to some, it originated in the dark digital days of the 1960s when the prospect of computers being able to fully complete more than one task at the same time was still an uncertain proposition. Not so today. Pretty much on a daily basis my computer can (and does) inform me that it has blocked three popup adds while simultaneously locking me out of Outlook and downloading 1 x 1023 terabytes of Microsoft patches automatically, effectively making my browser speed something close to glacial. Now that’s progress .
In common parlance, to multitask is taken to mean doing more than one thing during the same moment in time, but that is surely incorrect. True multitasking is doing more than one thing at the same time and doing it well, which I would argue is definitely not the case with most multi-taskers. Take the toaster oven for instance; it toasts and it bakes, but it neither toasts as well as a toaster, nor bakes as well as an oven. It doesn’t even look very cool, it just takes up counterspace. Multitasking, it seems to me, is hugely overrated.

But when Greg Stewart of Masonic Traveler and Masonic Central got ahold of me and told me about his idea for his new site, Freemason Information – aha! I thought, here is a multi-tasker that might actually fit the bill. Over the coming weeks, you Dear Reader, will find the finest variety of Masonic thought on- or offline right here. A toaster oven you say? Maybe, but I prefer to think of it as a toaster oven on steroids, with Dafoe at the throttle and Milliken amping up the kilowatts just to make sure it stays extra hot. I'll be there, as well. This thing will toast, bake and iron your shirts.

Check it out – I think you’ll like it.