Multitasking
Today I was catching up on my RSS feeds in Google Reader when iTunes started playing a song I didn’t feel like hearing. Without taking my eyes off the article I was reading, I typed Cmd-Space-n-e-x-t-Enter (Pull up Quicksilver, run “Next Song” script). I think that’s the first time I’ve done that without looking, and that seems significant.
Yes, there’s no such thing as true multitasking. But this makes me think that good software can dramatically reduce the overhead of switching tasks. When I run a task through Quicksilver, it preserves my foreground window, and keeps my hands on the keyboard. If I’ve memorized the command I want to run, I don’t even have to move my eyes to the Quicksilver dialog. Just think, type, go. And then continue what I was doing.
