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What are you doing right now while you’re glancing through
this article? Monitoring a screen for stock figures?
Ordering office supplies on-line? Installing a new piece
of software? Carrying on Instant Message conversations
with three co-workers? Eating your lunch while working
on a proposal? If you’re like most professionals today,
you’re probably multitasking. As technology increasingly
tempts people to attempt several things at once, many
have embraced multitasking as a valid way of increasing
productivity. Or maybe it’s a post-layoff corporate assumption
that the few can be made to do the work of many.
Regardless, I’d like to clear up a couple myths. Most
people think that multitasking is “doing more than one
thing at a time,” but it’s really switching back and forth
very quickly between tasks. The conscious mind is
actually incapable of doing more than one thing at a time. For
example, let’s say you’re typing an email and a co-worker
walks in and starts talking to you. Can you give
the same amount of attention to constructing the email
as you can to listening to the person? Of course
not. One or the other loses your focus.
Another myth is that multi-tasking allows you to increase
your efficiency and productivity by working more quickly. Not
so, according to newly released results of a new scientific
study in multitasking. Scientists have discovered some
hidden costs of what they call “task switching.”
The research indicates that multitasking, in fact, reduces
productivity.
Joshua Rubinstein, Ph.D., of the Federal Aviation Administration,
and David Meyer, Ph.D., and Jeffrey Evans, Ph.D., both
at the University of Michigan, describe their research
in the August 2001 issue of the Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, published
by the American Psychological Association (APA). They
determined that for all types of tasks, subjects lost
time when they had to switch from one task to another. The
time loss (called “time cost”) was even greater when the
complexity and unfamiliarity of the task increased. The
scientists estimated that not being able to concentrate
for even ten minutes at a time may cost a company as much
as 20 to 40 percent in terms of potential efficiency lost,
or the “time cost of switching,” as these researchers
call it.
To explain why this happens, you have to understand the
way the brain works. When you toggle back and forth
between activities, whether its talking on the cell phone
while driving, using different computer programs, or writing
an email while you’re trying to have a conversation with
a co-worker, you’re using your “executive control” process,
which is basically your mental CEO. You’ve got to
(1) want to switch tasks (called goal shifting:
“I want to do this now instead of that”), you’ve got to
(2) make the switch (called rule activation: “I’m
turning off the rules for that and turning on the rules
for this”), and then you’ve got to (3) get warmed
up on what you switch to or switched back to. For
example, let’s say you’re banging away on a report on
Word. Then the phone rings and you answer it. When
you hang up, there is a lag when you return to your document
where you say, “Okay, where was I?” and get your train
of thought back. In effect, you briefly get “writer’s
block” as you go from one task to the other.
Rule activation itself takes significant amounts of time,
several tenths of a second, which can add up when people
switch back and forth repeatedly between tasks. Thus,
multitasking may seem more efficient on the surface but
may actually take more time in the end. For example,
Meyer points out, a mere half second of time lost to task
switching can mean the difference between life and death
for a driver using a cell phone, because during the time
that the car is not totally under control, it can travel
far enough to crash into obstacles the driver might have
otherwise avoided.
So how do you stop multitasking and start focusing instead? Here
are five ideas to get you started:
1.Batch. Email will kill your concentration. We
have an almost obsessive-compulsive love affair with email. We’re
dying of curiosity and want to read each one as it arrives.
Instead, turn off the notification on your email program
that indicates you’ve
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got mail. Set aside a specific number of times per
day that you will check and deal with your email. Enforce
the same schedule on yourself each day, so that you
aren’t distracted by constant email and can concentrate
on the task at hand. I check mine first thing in the
morning, mid-morning, after lunch, and about an hour
before I leave for the day.
2. Concentrate. Figure out what thoughts
are distracting you and claiming your focus. Write
out the following list: (1) Things I’m doing
that I want to (satisfying to you), (2) Things
I’m doing that I don’t want to (things you are tolerating),
(3) Things I’m not doing that I want to (things
that are missing), and (4) Things I’m not doing
that I don’t want to (successfully keeping out of my
life). I suggest that you focus on items 2 and 3 as
a way of self-diagnosing the problems in your life.
Clear up these areas, and the voices in your head won’t
bother you as much.
3. Prioritize. Don’t get sidelined by interruptions. If
you’re working on the last-minute details of a report
for a meeting that starts in 30 minutes, don’t accept
a drop-in visitor’s request to “ask you something really
quick.” When people say, “Gotta minute?” they never
mean just one. Deflect the interruption by saying,
“Hi Donna (don’t pause) I really want to talk with you
about this AND I’m preparing for a meeting that begins
in just a few minutes. Can I call you at 3:00?”
If you MUST be distracted by a high-priority or emergency
request, hold up your pointer finger (a universal way
of saying “just a minute”), grab a sticky note, record
your VERY LAST thought on where you were on the project,
and stick it to your file or paper or screen. After
the interruption, when you return to your work, you
can pick right back up where you left off without thinking,
“Now, where was I?”
4. Control Self-Interruption and Blurting Through
Communication Logs. Many times you interrupt yourself.
You’re sitting at our desk, concentrating on an important
project, when all of a sudden, your brain start talking
to you. “Oh, I need to tell Chris this,” and you
interrupt yourself to get up (or pick up the phone or
dash off an email) to “blurt” out whatever it was we
were thinking about so you don’t “lose” it. Instead,
get yourself a 3-ring binder, some loose-leaf paper,
and A-Z tabs. Create a sheet of paper for each
person with whom you communicate frequently. When
your brain reminds you of something, simply turn to
that person’s communication log, filed alphabetically
behind their last name in the tabs. Jot down the
thought or idea and go right back to what you were doing. When
that person’s log has several thoughts “saved-up,” then
call the person and set up a meeting or phone conference
to review the items you’ve come up with.
5. Use Memory Tools. When something pops
up into your brain, you MUST write it down somewhere.
If you don’t, your brain will continue to serve its
main function by reminding you again…and again…and again. That’s
called memory…it’s a good thing! But if you don’t
want to keep experiencing the same distracting thought
over and over again, simply record the idea in the proper
place. Writing something down gives your brain
“resolution,” and your brain actually thinks you “did”
it. Pretty neat, huh? The most important
tools to use for this purpose are (1) Daily to-do lists
(or the Outlook Task Pad), and (2) a “master” task list. If
the thought is something that has to be done on a certain
day, write it down on that day’s daily to-do list. If
you use Outlook, create a new Task (with the day you
need to work on the task as the “start date”). If it’s
not for today, write it on a master to-do list, or memory
list, which is just a running list of all the things
you want to remember to do at some point, but you’re
not yet ready to schedule or put on a daily plan.
In Outlook, you would simply leave the “start” and “due”
dates blank, and review activities with no due date
each month to decide which ones are ready to have a
“start date” added.
I dare you to give yourself one week to practice each
of these five tips and see how much better you will
be able to focus at the end of the five weeks!
Email me and tell me how it goes.Just remember what
Clint Eastwood said at the end of one of his ‘Dirty
Harry’ movies: “A man’s gotta know his limitations.”
Here’s to an end of multitasking!
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