✦ AUGHTY ✦ The Switch 27 AUGHTY Remember the keys. The brain that won't bend unless the floor is worth it. That was about starting a task. This is about switching from one to the next. It is its own problem. THE SWITCH. Three steps. None automatic. Each takes time. 1 WIND DOWN Discharge the state of the current task. Let it decompose. The names, the open threads, the half-finished moves. Cannot skip this. 2 LOAD Load the new content. The structures, the names, the recent decisions, the layers that already exist. Cannot skim this. 3 RESTORE Resume the last state of the new task. Where did I leave off. What had I just decided. What was the open question. Cannot fake this. Three steps every time. They do not overlap. They do not parallelize. THE CHECKSUM. During restore, each layer of the task has to be verified. layer 1 — the goal ✓ makes sense layer 2 — the approach ✓ makes sense layer 3 — the structure ? still needs work layer 4 — the details ⋯ not loaded yet Each layer marked: made sense, needs work, or not yet there. I move up and down between layers, verifying each. Without the checksum I cannot tell what is finished and what is mid-thought. WHY NEW WORK COSTS MORE. PATTERNED TASKS Compressed structure exists. I expand the pattern. The layers come back fast. The checksum runs cheap. Familiar work is mostly free to resume. UNPATTERNED TASKS No compressed structure yet. Each layer has to be rebuilt before it can be checked. The checksum has nothing to check yet. New work is rebuilt from scratch each time. A new project costs more than a familiar one. Every time. Most people switch context several times an hour. They pay almost nothing. I switch context several times an hour. I pay every time. The cost is not laziness. It is not resistance. It is the load. When the load is too high, I do not switch. I stop. Then I am told I am not flexible. Flexibility, when you pay full price every time, is a different word.