Hey, can you remember a time when you heard somebody say, “I’m multitasking!” and they sounded excited about it, like they’d just mastered the unicycle? 

If you can’t think of anybody right off, it may have been you.

 

Somewhere along the way, multitasking got a good name.  It’s a Cube Farm Myth of epic proportion, and proof that any falsehood repeatedly heard over time will be regarded as truthful. 

 

The real deal on this one:  Contrary to common logic, multitasking isn’t a talent and it’s nothing to be proud of.

 

We’ve all tried it. 

 

It doesn’t work.

 

Heck, it’s not even fun.

 

The cruel part is, experience might seem to support the myth that multitasking equates to productivity:  Because we’re engaged in several things at once, we have the temporary sensation that we’re also accomplishing several things at once.

 

But this feeling goes away right after the multitasking stops. 

As we sober up from the super-hero adrenaline buzz of doing everything at once, a couple of familiar feelings can creep in on us: 

1-“Today was hectic” (because we were trying to do too much), and

 

2-“I feel like I didn’t get anything done” (because we were trying to do too much).

 

If you’ve ever had these thoughts after putting in a hard day, multitasking may have been the agent saboteur.  And it all happened because of the approach (or lack of an approach) that you had going in.

 

Consider this, if you were a painter with five houses to paint, which of these strategies would seem most effective time-wise:

 

1-Paint the entire first house, then the next, then the next, until finished, or

 

2-Paint one room in the first house, then paint one room in the next, and so on, until finished?

 

If you picked number one, you’re either cured already, or you will be after you read this. 

 

If you picked number two, you’re addicted to multitasking—stop reading and find somebody with a herringbone jacket, a pipe, and a black leather couch.

 

Okay, you’re still here, so I’ll tell you what the ones who just left can’t comprehend:  Multitasking is ineffective because there’s a natural loss of momentum and focus when we shift from one task… to another. 

 

Unlike the hapless painter who’d paint part of one house and then another, most of us don’t have a “strategy” that allows for multitasking.  Instead, we fall prey to it because we allow ourselves to be victims of interruption.  Cell phones, desk phones, email, faxes, Blackberries, television, radio, desk papers, and of course the most vicious of them all—the walk-in intruder—distract us from what we’re doing.

 

So here’s the secret… if multitasking is a sickness, distraction is the virus that causes it.

 

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One study at UC Irvine found that on average, it takes roughly 20 minutes to get regrouped and back to the same point we were at before the interruption.  Any time we allow a distraction to lure us away, we’re now attempting to do more than one thing at a time, aren’t we?  And we’ll fall victim to this 20 minute recovery period.  Lack of focus, loss of productivity, and stress immediately follow.  

 

Even wilder:  Another study cited in Discover Magazine reached the conclusion that people who were constantly interrupted by emails and instant messages performed worse in a controlled test than people who had been smoking marijuana.  The “Continuous Partial Attention” (fancy name for multitasking) actually had the effect of temporarily lowering the IQs of those who were continually distracted.

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In my opinion, all this is strictly a modern phenomenon.  Did anyone talk about multi-tasking 150 years ago?  Did the idea even exist?  Do you think a blacksmith ever felt the urge to multitask?  Technology is the cause of all this.  In theory it’s supposed to make life simpler, but really all the gadgets and “helpful” machinery just end up giving us more stuff to deal with.  And we take the bait…  

 

We check our email when the bell rings.

 

We answer the phone every time it rings. 

 

We toggle between internet windows.

 

And of course, we drop everything and talk to anyone who stops by.

 

Any time we follow distractions, we’re handing ourselves over to the whims of the world around us.  We naively allow outside forces to dictate our activities, and we call our response “multitasking”.  

 

So multitasking isn’t so much a decision… as a result.  And if you don’t have a plan to defend yourself, by default multi-tasking will overtake you. 

 

The good news?  Decision is the antidote.  To eliminate the temptation of multi-tasking, make a deliberate decision to focus… and eliminate interruptions: 

 

1-Consciously commit to working on just one thing—and take it to completion, and

 

2-Eliminate ANYTHING that will distract you from your task:  Ignore any uncontrollable interruptions like phones, email, and intruders (and be prepared to deal with these time-vampires forcefully—or they’ll remorselessly suck the blood out of your work day).

 

Oh, and one last caution I have to include:  There’s another source of distraction that will lure you into the pit of multitasking:  Your thoughts.  Even when you’ve eliminated all outside interferences, you’ll still have to deal with yourself. 

 

Would you agree that ultimately, your own thoughts are your worst enemy?

 

Negativity, worry, and of course the old foe self-distraction, are always there to contend with.  You may be distracted with thoughts of issues apart from your work.  Or you may suddenly remember something you forgot to do—and drop everything to handle it.  Suddenly you’re multitasking again.

 

Thought can be harnessed, or allowed to run wild.  In either case, it’s always the starting point for every action you take, so be wary of what you think about.

 

The ultimate key to success—and the biggest challenge—is controlling yourself. 

 

Control your thoughts… and you control your life. 

 

Are you up for it?

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Speaking of thoughts, leave a comment with yours—I’m interested in your take…

 

 

-jef

 

 

 

 

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Tags: distraction, focus, Time Management

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 11:50 pm and is filed under Time Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.