So, I’m probably never going to get hired at any office job in the foreseeable future for writing this Substack post because it goes against everything corporate and capitalistic cultures stand for.
But you know what? I’m going to write it anyway and talk about these things because I’m tired of how corporate culture and capitalism squeezes every drop out of people like they’re lemons in order for companies to sell lemonade to their consumers.
Anyway, here goes nothing. Or everything.
Multitasking is a myth, and we need to stop promoting it as a highly valuable skill.
There. I said it. I even tweeted about it once on March 23, 2023, in a #HotTake🔥 that I still stand by to this day.
Essentially, if you’re expected to “multitask in a fast-paced environment” just as many job descriptions list, I think that you’re likely going to be overworked in a company that’s probably understaffed. I think that you’re also likely going to be paid less than a living wage and are not going to be paid for any increasing responsibilities you take on.
Yet this is what’s expected of most editorial assistants and other professionals within corporate and capitalist cultures all the time. You’re expected to work at breakneck-speed, expected to work overtime, and expected to offer little to no complaint while your body’s cortisol levels shoot through the roof and damage your body—all the while increasing your risk of making mistakes on the job, getting terrible performance reviews, and getting one step closer to being fired.
If you don’t believe me, take Matthew Salon’s word for it. He’s the executive editor of Harvard Men’s Health Watch, and his article titled “The art of monotasking”—which was reviewed by the chief medical editor of Harvard Health Publishing, Dr. Howard E. LeWine—details how multitasking increases the chance of making more mistakes because the brain cannot devote “attention to multiple tasks that require high-level brain function”. Sure, you might be able to cook dinner while talking on the phone with a friend, but those tasks don’t require the same so-called high-level brain function as trying to create a PowerPoint presentation while simultaneously scheduling the next month’s meetings for your boss. And yes, you can have multiple responsibilities and projects all with different requirements and deadlines. Ask any full-time parent about how they juggle home-schooling, doing the laundry, cooking, cleaning, and so many other tasks throughout the week for their family. Even so, with any task requiring any level of brain function, you have to approach each of them with care and diligence, or else you risk making unnecessary mistakes and getting nothing done.
Unfortunately, capitalism—and human nature, to some extent—always drives for that supposed sweet spot of little effort yielding high returns. Buying fast food for dinner is more convenient than cooking dinner at home. The chance to win a million dollars right this very moment seems more enticing than opening a retirement account and putting money in it that you won’t see in thirty-plus years. In the same vein, having ChatGPT write a blog post for your company’s website is quicker and cheaper than paying a freelance writer to do it, but is it really worth it? Is it the right thing to do?
For the price of attempting to do many things at once very quickly, we sacrifice our health, our wealth, our free thought, and our free will. Capitalistic and corporate cultures don’t reward those who are slow and thoughtful because being slow and thoughtful requires time, which eats into the chance of making even more profit, which supposedly reduces inefficiency, which will lead to restructuring, and on, and on, and on until complete disintegration. Being slow and thoughtful shows to others that you cannot be pressured, bribed, persuaded, or threatened into doing any work that doesn’t seem fair or reasonable.
Most of all, being slow and thoughtful shows that you respect your time, your expertise, and your experience, which you have cultivated like fine wine over the years. It shows that you are not desperate to seek another’s approval and that your labor is not a disposable commodity. It shows others that being slow is not a sign that you are unskilled and thusly unfit for the job. Rather, it shows others that you accept where you are and are willing to learn how to get to where you want to be, no matter how long it takes.
Which is why I have so much sympathy for editorial assistants in the publishing industry right now and why I don’t think I want to be one in the future anymore.
I used to want to be editorial assistant very much. After teaching English as a foreign language for three years, I was eager to be involved with what I really loved, which was being in the presence of the written word and books. I wanted to read manuscript submissions and find the next great novel. And eventually, I would climb the ladder to become an acquiring editor with my own list and shake the publishing world by storm.
But after I completed the Sourcebooks BIPOC Editorial Training Program, I realized that reading submissions was the last thing an editorial assistant did. In fact, they’re really more of an administrative assistant.
Here, just take a look at this recent job listing for an editorial assistant with Hachette’s Voracious and Little, Brown imprints, and look at all the administrative duties it requires: communicating with authors, compiling profit and loss statements, tracking title schedules, writing catalog copy, managing art logs, trafficking projects, coordinating meeting schedules, and more. Out of the twelve bullet points listing essential duties and responsibilities of the position, only three have anything to do with editing and writing. Specifically, I’m referring to responding to book proposals, writing promotional copy, and assisting in editing acquired manuscripts. And of course, what’s listed in the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Required section is a bullet point with a phrase we’ve all come to know by now: A potential editorial assistant must be a “[s]elf-starter with [the] ability to attend to details and juggle multiple priorities in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment”.
Now, I don’t know about you, but all of the prior duties and responsibilities seem to require a high-level of brain function and specialization due to their emphasis on project management and creative production. Though the editorial duties are a fourth of the total listed, they’re still important for the job. Editorial assistants are often the first line of entry for manuscript submissions and the first point of contact for authors. Their role in publishing is absolutely vital.
But I often wonder what it would be like if editorial assistants were simply named administrative assistants and solely given administrative tasks to complete so that their specializations can truly shine. I wonder what it would be like if editors were paid a salary rather than as freelancers by the project. And I’ve wondered once or twice why the publishing industry at large doesn’t have dedicated submissions readers like literary magazines do.
Honestly, I think a lot more people would be a lot less stressed at work if they were allowed to do one thing at a time and if they were allowed to do one type of thing at a time—hence, monotasking over multitasking. Granted, if you’re a jack of all trades, if you’re good at a lot of different things, and you like doing a lot of different things at once, be my guest. But for those of us who want to do high quality work in a field that we love at our own pace without the pressure of the grind, monotasking is where its at.
Monotasking is exactly what it sounds like: doing one task at a time with your undivided attention. It’s the bread and butter of mindful activities like meditation, tai chi, and exercise, and it’s what allows us to do our best work under the best possible conditions.
It’s okay if you don’t get what you’re working on finished right away. What’s important is that while you’re monotasking, you’re learning to respect your body’s limits and boundaries. For those who have trouble focusing on something for long periods of time or need music to help them focus, monotasking is where you learn what you need to be at your best and how to implement those habits for next time. Whatever works best for you is what works best for you, not what works best for corporate or capitalist culture that seeks to exploit you for the sake of making profit.
Okay, sure, that’s all well and good, Karen, some of you might be thinking, but what about us freelancers? We have to wear multiple hats to run our business or businesses. We have to do a lot of different kinds of tasks every day.
To which I’d say, true. I’m a freelancer who wears multiple hats and has multiple things they want to do. And sometimes, I have no choice but to map out a daily plan to in order to meet a certain project deadline by a certain time. I don’t disagree with that. Even within all my multiple interests, I have many smaller goals within them.
And for a good while, I tried to wear all these hats every day. I tried to be an author, a book coach, an entrepreneur, and a job hunter each day, spending an hour or so for each, but even then, switching between all these tasks and desires felt too jarring for me.
So, today, for this post, I just decided that I was going to wear my author hat. I worked on some things for the book coaching certification with Author Accelerator in the morning only because I think spaced repetition helps me learn a concept best, but overall, I was just an author, looking at my list of author-related things. I looked into membership fees for a writing organization. I lamented how long Dropbox took to copy a file. And I spent the majority of my time working on this Substack post.
I plan to do the same next week—be an author on Monday, a book coach on Tuesday, an entrepreneur on Wednesday, a job hunter on Thursday, and a regular person on Friday to give myself a break from working on all these different things.
And you know what? It felt really nice to work like this compared to what I was used to doing and had pressured myself into doing. I had the urge to work on other unrelated things, but I knew that it would overwhelm me like it had done so many other times before. This way, I plan to do deep work those days so that I can fully appreciate the commonalities across all my interests and goals while working on just one set at a time.
Most importantly, a la Rebecca Sugar, I plan on taking my sweet time doing so.
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