Term of the day: Continuous Partial Attention.

This is just too good not to make a note of it here. Library Stuff links to an article from The Boston Globe defining this term. The definition is as follows:

"Continuous partial attention is that state most of us enter when we're in front of a computer screen, or trying to check out at the grocery store with a cellphone pressed to an ear -- or blogging the proceedings of a conference while it's underway. We're aware of several things at once, shifting our attention to whatever's most urgent -- perhaps the chime of incoming e-mail, or the beep that indicates the cellphone is low on juice. It's not a reflective state."

So now we finally have a name for that state of multitasking and being "in the zone." Hmm. . .or something like it. Note that it is NOT a reflective state.