I have another possible reason why focusing on one project might be better than dividing one’s time between many projects. There may be returns to density of time spent. That is, an hour you spend on a project is more productive if you’ve just spent many hours on that project. For example, when I come back to a task after a few days, the details of it aren’t as fresh in my mind. I have to spend time getting back up to speed, and I miss insights that I wouldn’t have missed.
I haven’t seen much evidence about this, just my own experience. There might also be countervailing effects, like time required for concepts to “sink in”, and synergies, or insights for one project gleaned from involvement in another. It probably varies by task. My impression is that research projects feature very high returns to density of time spent.
Returns on density of time seems pretty plausible to me and particularly for cognitively intensive projects. Regarding sink in effects, I suspect many of these benefits can be accomplished by working on different aspects within the same overall project. E.g. working on hiring to take a break from cost-effectiveness analysis work when founding a charity.
I have another possible reason why focusing on one project might be better than dividing one’s time between many projects. There may be returns to density of time spent. That is, an hour you spend on a project is more productive if you’ve just spent many hours on that project. For example, when I come back to a task after a few days, the details of it aren’t as fresh in my mind. I have to spend time getting back up to speed, and I miss insights that I wouldn’t have missed.
I haven’t seen much evidence about this, just my own experience. There might also be countervailing effects, like time required for concepts to “sink in”, and synergies, or insights for one project gleaned from involvement in another. It probably varies by task. My impression is that research projects feature very high returns to density of time spent.
Returns on density of time seems pretty plausible to me and particularly for cognitively intensive projects. Regarding sink in effects, I suspect many of these benefits can be accomplished by working on different aspects within the same overall project. E.g. working on hiring to take a break from cost-effectiveness analysis work when founding a charity.