Mono-task or multi-task?

Five approaches to the multi-tasking dilemma from Charles Darwin, Cal Newport & Cathy Rentzenbrink.

Hello and welcome to your Wednesday read

This week we’re having a week of extreme multi-tasking with two courses starting on the same day, a presentation to write, a book to research and lots of other business admin to attend to.

All of which has left us a little time starved so we’re sharing an updated post about an either/or question we often get asked, namely: Should I mono-task and stick to writing one project at a time or should I multi-task instead and have several projects on the go? Which approach is best?

Our answer, rather predictably, is normally ‘it depends’. Sometimes other pieces of writing can be a distraction. Sometimes they can serve as a welcome break.

While there are no hard and fast rules to writing, there are approaches you can learn from and try on for size. So, with that in mind we’ve assembled five approaches that writers use to find balance and make progress. As always, learning how others manage multi-tasking might surprise, horrify or inspire you - but at the very least we hope they offer some comfort that you are not alone in struggling with this. 

1. Creative monogamy with Dolly Alderton

Famed for her complicated and rather messy love life, Dolly Alderton declared herself a monogamist when it came to writing. 

Alderton is the definition of a multi-hyphenate with achievements across a wide range of creative projects. Blogger turned journalist with a must-read dating column, she penned a bestselling memoir, hosted the chart-topping podcast The High Low, added scriptwriting and live events to her credits before moving on to fiction. When it came to writing her first novel she needed to focus on one project at a time. 

“I like being creatively monogamous,” she explained, being “left alone, I get to have a relationship with this thing. Art imitating life, I like going deep.” 

Let’s leave Alderton to concentrate on her love of writing and go deep ourselves, as we turn to digital minimalist and father of deep work Cal Newport and an approach inspired by James Bond. 

“I like being creatively monogamous … I get to have a relationship with this thing. Art imitating life, I like going deep.” 

- Dolly Alderton

2. Cal Newport’s seasonal approach 

In his book Slow Productivity, Cal Newport shares the story of James Bond author Ian Fleming taking two months out of a work contract to spend his winter in Jamaica.

Holed up in a ramshackle estate called Goldeneye (of course) Fleming penned the first James Bond book Casino Royale. He set a pattern for writing his dozen Bond titles: outline the plot in London in the autumn, write the first draft in Jamaica, then return to London for editing and publication. Repeat.

Newport is keen to emphasise that “the concrete lesson for today is not to spend your winters in Jamaica, but instead to embrace seasonality in your work rhythms.” He encourages us to extract general principles and find ways to work at a natural pace, which might be as simple as having a weekly schedule for specific tasks that contribute to long-term writing projects. 

“the concrete lesson for today is not to spend your winters in Jamaica, but instead to embrace seasonality in your work rhythms.”

- Cal Newport

3. Slow-motion multi-tasking with Tim Harford

In his TED Talk the author and broadcaster Tim Harford argues “we can make multi-tasking work for us, unleashing our natural creativity. We just need to slow it down.”

He shares the example of Victorian naturalist Charles Darwin who, over the course of his life, worked on several projects concurrently. As we explore in our book, Darwin, kept secret his theory of natural selection, saying that his thoughts on species change felt like ‘confessing a murder’. Aware of the disruption it would cause, it took him 20 years to write and publish On The Origin of The Species.

Our initial speculation was that he was procrastinating, but consider his other lifelong passion for earthworms, a far less controversial subject. He dedicated 44 years of careful research which culminated in the book Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms. Perhaps it just takes that long to do justice to the writing.

“We can make multi-tasking work for us, unleashing our natural creativity. We just need to slow it down.”

- Tim Harford

4. Toggling tasks with Cathy Rentzenbrink

We can’t ask Darwin why he toggled between projects across his life, but acclaimed memoirist and novelist Cathy Rentzenbrink explains that she has written so much simply because she changed projects. She told us:

“Most of my books exist because I was stuck writing another book. I was writing my novel before I even wrote my first book, but then it was supposed to be my second book. Then I wrote my second book and my third book because I was stuck writing that novel.” 

- Cathy Rentzenbrink

Rather than double down on a project when stuck, switching tasks keeps you interested and engaged, and most importantly writing. While it might look like procrastination (delaying a hard task for something easier, quicker and less anxiety-producing) switching projects can be very productive, leading some to call it procrasti-creating.

It’s like indulging in a writing affair - you promise an agent or publisher that you’ll be faithful to your current work-in-progress, but can’t help but have a creative fling. Which brings us to our fifth and final approach.

5. Stephanie Scott switches forms

Stephanie Scott had received funding to write and research a novel. A few years into the process, she decided to learn poetry and scriptwriting, which is where I met her on back-to-back courses at Arvon Lumb Bank when I was running writing retreats.

She told me¹ that what looked like epic procrastination was actually a deliberate focus on improving her craft. Scott explained:

“Reading and writing poetry can be extremely beneficial when in search of rigour and attention to detail in your own writing. Similarly, just as drama is admired for its wit and brevity, learning how playwrights develop plot and emotional relationships using only dialogue can be instrumental when working on one’s own dramatic scenes in prose. Experimenting with form will teach you a lot about your work, what you want to create and what you want to achieve.”

Scott is right, research shows that some of the most prolific and innovative scientists had several projects on the go at once, switching topics 43 times in their first 100 research papers.²

“Experimenting with form will teach you a lot about your work, what you want to create and what you want to achieve.”

- Stephanie Scott

Find what works for you

Whether you opt for writing monogamy, have a creative fling or lean into natural work rhythms - across a season or a lifetime - there’s a range of strategies available for you to use.

The path to productivity and fulfilment in our writing is as unique as our own creative voices, so continue to seek, experiment, and ultimately, find what works for you.

Keep writing,

Bec

1. Bec Evans & Chris Smith, Written: How to Keep Writing and Build a Habit That Lasts

2. Maurine Bernstein & Helen Gamier (1993) ‘Identification of scientists making long‐term, high‐impact contributions, with notes on their methods of working’, Creativity Research Journal, 6:4, 329-343.