Published: April 06, 2007 in articles » management by Thomas Baekdal
Carmine Coyote has written an excellent article on multitasking and how ineffective it makes us.
Multi-tasking isn't a solution. It's a vast and growing part of the problem.
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People who believe they can multi-task effectively share a dangerous delusion: that paying attention to several things simultaneously actually increases their available attention above 100 percent, so they can still focus fully on every task. This is logical nonsense. It's like saying you can spend your total income on food and housing and have the same amount available to spend on an expensive vacation.- Carmine Coyote
That is very good advice. Most companies think that you can easily do more than one thing - some even go to the extent of defining their success by the number of tasks they have to handle. The truth is that it does not work that way.
How long will it take to convince everyone, including the grab-and-go organizations and macho Hamburger Managers out there that true multi-tasking isn't possible? That what they are doing is lowering productivity, raising stress levels, and turning creative, productive people into semi-idiots?- Carmine Coyote
And, it is not only companies that think this way. Many people feel guilty and less productive if they only have a single item on today's list of tasks.
BTW: Pressure from within is one of the highest causes for stress - and most frequent cause for burning out.
I used to be a person who was "thrived on multitasking", I constantly did more than one thing, and I managed or was part of more than one project at the time. But, the number of projects, things, tasks, ideas and general interruptions caused me to become less productive with each job. During this time it also was not unusual that I worked 60-70 hours per week.
1-2 years ago I was forced to change how I worked. I had to become more productive and less stressed -simultaneously. I solved it by moving away from the multi-tasking life. I now get more done, in less time, at higher quality - and most importantly without feeling stressed.
You need to focus not only on the number of things you work on, but also on your mental workload - how many things you mind has to cope with. You are still multitasking if are constantly reminded of future things in your head.
Single-tasking is undoubtedly a key element to getting a better life, and to become more productive. Delete your calendar and to-do list and give yourself a fresh start (I did).
Many people feel they must multitask because everybody else is multitasking, but this is partly because they are all interrupting each other so much- Marilyn vos Savant - Columnist and author
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Leslie, I am not sure I understand what you are saying - but I cannot see how multitasking as a group justifies making the individual less efficient. I agree that it often happens, but it is not a good way to work as a team.
Multitasking is by definition doing two or more things simultaneously, and that divides the focus, which means less efficiency overall. This also applies to a group.
Good teamwork is having individuals or small groups single-tasking within their field of responsibility - working towards a mutual goal. To the outsider it seems like the group is multitasking - they do many different things at the same time - but each team member is single-tasking.
...or just look at sport. Multi-tasking will ruin your game. You cannot be both defensive and offensive. Instead you assign each player a role that he must fill 100%. As a team you cover all areas of the playing field, but each player is single-tasking within his responsibility.
The result is synergy.
It's interesting that you say focus two hours on small tasks at the start of the day. I find that very distracting when I do that because the small tasks often get bigger.
Most of what I've read on single tasking involves identifying your Most Important Tasks of the day and then focusing exclusively on them.
Because it is your most important task, even if you don't get to anything else you're still maximizing your effectiveness because it is your most important task.
I know what you mean about getting the small stuff out of the way though, because there's a lot of stress if it feels like it is always piling up.
Multitasking is usually not good for people. Switching from task to task takes some time, you have to recall at what point another task was stopped, what is done and what is not.
But sometimes multitasking is good, because you switch your thoughts to another project, and some very good idea may pop up when you get back to the original project.
Lately, I have wondered if multi-tasking was created by people who have ADD. Since most people in the work force these days grew up on TV, most of them have ADD. Perhaps because TV shows get through mutliple story lines in 30 minutes, it makes us feel like we should do the same at work.
This mentality causes too much pressure for the people who like to take things slowly but do so efficiently. Now, on many job descriptions "must be able to multi-task" is listed at the top.
I prefer to take things slowly. Last year, I quit my job and I stopped following the crowd. The last 6 months have felt like a year. Back when I was multi-tasking a year would go by before I knew. Time is all we have, we should cherish it.
Its so refreshing to hear that there are people out there who think multi tasking is a negative thing. I've been feeling so unsuccessful lately, and honestly a little bad about myself because in the last 8 months I've lost 2 jobs because I couldn't do 50 things at once. When my last boss let me go she told me I was wonderful with patients, that I was hardworking, great at focusing on a task and very detail oriented, she said that my co workers loved working with me and that I had a great attitude, but said she had to let me go because I struggled to perform 50 tasks at once. It broke my heart. I was devastated that I couldn't meet her expectations. Now I recognise that I am very good at focusing on a specific task so that it gets my full attention and is done right, and I don't think thats a bad thing. Thanks to all of you for letting me know that I'm not alone, I really appreciate this site.
i just wanted to say i think that everyone multitasks you just don't know you do.
Funny, I was googling to see who else had thought about "multitasking group efficiency" and ended up here again...
I guess it's worth clarifying what we mean by "multitasking", and being more specific about what the problem is. You defined "multitasking" as an individual doing more than one thing at once. I suppose I would agree that that is generally not efficient, but would focus more on this notion of distraction than on the reality of how we are tasked with multiple jobs at once.
Should we as individuals minimize distraction? I guess here's where I would say that sometimes it is worth being interrupted even if your flow goes down the tube. When I worked at MSFT, if we "broke the build" of something large (like Vista), or when we took down parts of the website accidentally at Amazon.com, you better bet that we got interrupted with pages/text messages/people knocking down our doors.
This is a tricky issue to work through, but I just wanted to offer the contrarian view, not as a replacement but as a contrast, as this "Multitasking is not good for anyone" view is very common but doesn't make explicit how it qualifies efficiency through the scope/lens of the individual rather than the group.
I teach - I have no control over the tasks that present themselves to me in the course of a day. I speak to over 100 children a day in a meaningful way - I have no choice but to multi task; how do I reward/sanction certain behaviours, plan, remember and explain, answer questions, regulate social mores and be answerable to the government. We may not be able to multi-task; but we do.
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Apr 6
2007
Leslie
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Multi-tasking seems suboptimal if your analysis focuses mostly on the individual, but just as time-sharing/time-slicing operating systems replaced single-user systems, we are increasingly, as a society and a world, interdependent.
From a collectivist standpoint, it doesn't quite mater as much if a single person is somewhat less efficient, as long as the group can Get Things Done.
A good mix of single-tasking and multi-tasking slows down the individual, but has the chance to speed up the time-to-completion (the needs of the many) for an entire group.
~L