How good are you at interleaving operations?

摘要

I was sitting in the dentist's chair not long ago. It leaves one with a lot of time to think — because it's really hard to talk with all of that stuff in your mouth. Although my appointment was for an hour and a half, I was getting attention from my dentist only a fraction of that time. It occurred to me that I was not the only person with an 8:30 appointment that morning. And yet, I felt comfortable that he was taking good care of me. He was doing a masterful job of interleaving tasks. That is, he was serving me and perhaps several other patients at the same time. He was making excellent use of what would otherwise have been idle time —waiting for anesthetic to take effect, impressions to harden and who knows what else.