Work Farm
I will avoid the tortured metaphors of life being a highway or train tracks or whatever. Simply put, the great advantage and Achilles’ heel of being human is the ability to work on different things, leading in different directions simultaneously. It’s great for service or information companies, you can answer the phone and review a spreadsheet at the same time, very efficient.
Modern measurements of efficiency were simply not possible in the old manufacturing economy when, for safety’s sake, or for speed, a person was required to perform a specific task over as quickly as possible or perhaps a set of tasks in sequence, very rapidly. These things take concentration, because people can only move very fast if they are intentionally trying to do so.
In information dependent companies employees do many different things, often simultaneously. We usually call this multi-tasking and do it in our personal lives all the time.
Of course, it can get out of hand, applying for new jobs while holding down another one can get very sticky if you have inconveniently scheduled interviews, driving while talking on the phone is universally denounced, justifiably. In the end, perhaps work has finally merged with our own private lives, we live the way we work and often work the way we live. I suppose in a way, it resembles farming which was a lifestyle more than a job. Is that good?