The
term multitasking was first published in the 1960’s to describe the
capabilities of a mainframe computer designed to cover a complete range of
applications. The term became a buzzword
applied to human tasking to make us sound proficient in juggling different work
activities and shifting attention from one task to another. Before long, the term multitasking was paired
with productivity and efficiency. Then people
decided they could call themselves super-taskers.
Computers are designed for multitasking; they can run more than one application simultaneously. Science has proven that the human brain does not have the ability to perform them simultaneously without compromising one of them. The human brain simply cannot fully focus when trying to multitask. This might not mean much if you’re brushing your teach and watching a movie at the same time. But, in the workplace, it can be detrimental.
While we say you cannot multitask, what you are really doing is switch-tasking which means your brains is switching focus from one activity to another. Switch tasking is somewhat effective in that you may be able to prioritize tasks and address the most critical and pressing demands first. You seem to switch-task smoothly and appear to be productive. However, science consistently shows that it is mentally taxing on your cognitive energies and much less efficient.
Essentially, you are playing tennis with your cognitive energies, volleying them back and forth at a moment’s notice. Depending on the complexity of the task your brain is usually not be as responsive as the tennis ball, it may take a little time to switch directions. You may work faster to compensate. Each task you take on adds to the cognitive load, uses up a lot of brain bandwith which contributes to mental fatique. It does not take much for your attention to become the more scarce resource. When your attention is limited by the processing power of your brain, limited by the resources available to the neurons there, you simply cannot digest all the information. The inefficiency is most pronounced with activities that require abstract thought and careful attention.
You may think you are more efficient and effective than is actually the case.
All that swtiching takes a toll on your cognitive energies, eats up time, derails mental progress and is counter-productive. It doesn't matter what you call it, multitasking or switch-tasking, decades of research repeatedly shows that performance suffers.
Stanford researchers compared groups of people based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance. They found that it takes 20 to 40 percent longer to complete a group of tasks while multitasking - with nearly twice as many errors.
“Heavy multitaskers (those who multitask a lot and feel that it boosts their performance) were actually worse at multitasking than those who like to do a single thing at a time. “The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another.”
They found nothing magical about the brains of our digital natives that keeps the younger generation from suffering the inefficiencies of multitasking.
Attention residue describes the way your attention is split when you have multiple tasks or obligations crowding your agenda. When you move from one task to the next one, it takes time for your attention to catch up. Your brain is not like a machine that you can switch off. Pieces of ideas and lingering thoughts keep swirling around in your head even after you have crossed an item off your to-do list. This is attention residue, and it basically keeps part of your cognitive resources busy, crowding out space you need in your head for the next important thing. The attention residue creates a division in your focus. You may not be aware of it, but it causes you to be less efficient in your work and reduces your overall performance. As a result, you might not be as good a listener, you may get overwhelmed more easily, you might make errors or struggle with decisions.
You impede your brain's capability to process information. Your brain employ mental filters to determine the most important information needing to be processed. These filtering processes happen automatically, beyond your conscious awareness. When there are multiple sources of information coming at you from the external world or emerging out of memory, your brain may find it difficult to filter out what’s not relevant. If you try to multitask and learn new information the data could actually be routed into the wrong part of your brain.
It might not be as undermining to switch activities within the same theme, but as a rule it takes around 25 minutes to get back on track – 23 minutes and 15 seconds to be exact, according to Gloria Mark, who studies digital distraction at the University of California, Irvine. Her studies also show that it is common for information workers to switch tasks every three minutes. Partly because of the demands of their job, but often they are distracted by self-interruptions – switch-tasking due to their technologies.
“We had observers go into the workplace and we timed people’s activities to the second. We’ve been to various workplaces, all high-tech companies. We wanted to look at information workers. We had observers shadow each person for three and a half days each and timed every activity to the second. If they pick up a phone call, that’s the start time. When they put the phone down, that’s the stop time. When they turn to the Word application we get the start time and stop time. We found people switched these activities on average of every three minutes and five seconds.”
The most notable of her findings was that roughly half of them were self-interruptions. That study was done in 2004. In her most recent study those stats are even more shocking. People switched tasks, on average, every 40 seconds. People are even more busy trying to multitask – checking emails fifty times a day or more, with social media, and messaging adding even more demands.
You have probably been switch-tasking most of the day. Maybe you just spent forty seconds checking twitter and will need to check email for the 10th time today. Your to-do list has a few check marks, and as soon as you finish reading the next few paragraphs, you’ve got to make a couple appointments, and then there is a new project that needs your attention. Glance around you. Is your cell phone nearby dinging alerts? Is your browser window still open? How many tabs open – research, podcast, Facebook, Ebay, vacation spot?
Try to determine the number of tasks you have rotated through. While you were working how many times were you distracted or interrupted today? Add those numbers together. Now take that number and multiply it by 20. That is at least how many minutes of concentration and mental processing time you lost, just today.
That is a significant mental toll! Research indicates that every additional task or tool you “switch to” eats up 20% of your productivity!
Later it will be children, shopping, dinner, sports, or hobbies. You will be switch-tasking for a few more hours.
There is a heavy cost associated with switch-tasking, and it is not all about money. The true costs of multitasking are to your mental health, happiness, focus, and ability to learn new things. Those are heavy costs for anyone.
How can you break the cycle and protect your attention, focus, and time? The answer is to accept that you can work smarter by directing your attention to the ways your brain works best.
Researchers at the University of Nottingham conducted 83 separate studies to explore energy and self-control. What they found could very well change the way you start your day. Your energy levels go through a natural ebb and flow throughout the day. “The researchers found that self-control and energy are not only intricately linked but also finite, that human daily resources tire much like a muscle. When you get busy you may not realize that as the day goes on, you have increased difficulty exerting self-control and focusing on your work. As self-control wears out, you feel tired and find tasks to be more difficult and your mood sours. This leads to less productivity.
During those hours when your self -control is highest are the most important hours of your work day. This might lead you to think that you should spend those hours working on multiple things. However, that is the time to set aside the uninterrupted block of time for focusing. “It is doing the right things in the morning that makes your energy and self-control last longer.” Here are four ways to work smarter.
One of the best things you can do is create a focused daily schedule that promotes single-tasking.
Whenever possible create an environment where you are free to focus on just one thing
Many of us struggle with the never-ending nature of our to-do lists. A daunting list can created a build-up of attention residue. This might not mean much if you’re checking personal email while binge watching Netflix. But, when important work needs to be done, that list of mundane chores looms, takes up headspace, slows you down, and adds anxiety and stress to your day.
To make that list of chores less distracting, bundle small or short unrelated chores into manageable chunks and designate an hour or two to power through them. Deciding how and when you are going to attend to a task reduces uncertainty and improves self-efficacy. Try to do that every day.
Modern technology complicates the situation for many workers since they are expected to handle simultaneous demands. But, it is not just the technology that complicates the situation. It is the presence or visibility of the technology. It is our lack of control to ignore the technology to concentrate on what is important as we manage our workloads.
Is it a rule or a habit that you have to check your phone and your email while working on other tasks? It is easy to be so tied into email and social media you are conditioned to expect an interruption every few minutes. Create a new normal that does not include phone, email and the alerts that interrupt your focus.
Clutter, external noises, and people can deter you from focus. Minimize the clutter. Wear headphones if you cannot eliminate the outside noise. Put up a do-not-disturb sign.
Given the media-rich landscape, it is tempting to get into a habit of dwelling in a constant sea of information with too many choices. We are conditioned to self-interrupt by our "need to know". Without knowing it or intending for it to happen you can be drawn in different directions to things that are inconsequential to the work at hand. They chip away at your attention span and before you know it several minutes or an hour drifts away. With a world of knowledge at your finger tips, can you avoid the temptation to “find out now”?
Your energy levels go through a natural ebb and flow throughout the day. Studies show people work best in a 90 – 120 minute cycle of alertness before they need a mental break so that the brain can reset or recharge. Self-control and energy are intricately linked. When you get busy you may not realize that as the day goes on, you have increased difficulty exerting self-control and focusing on your work. As your energy wanes, your self-control wears out. You may not even grasp that as your energy wanes, tasks are more difficult, or that your mood sours. When this happens you lessen your ability to focus which can lead to distractions that interrupt your flow.
During those hours when your self-control is highest, are the most important hours of your work day. Since it is not always easy to recognize when your body signals you that it has crossed the energy boundary, set a timer to fit in rest and relaxation breaks. Both are energizing and boost cognitive function and control. When the timer alerts you disengage from work, go for a walk away from the computer, the office, the work environment, technology. Do something different and refreshing. A real break takes your mind away from what you’re doing completely. Energized, your control is restored and you quickly regain your concentration.
Push Pause for Proper Rest and Relaxation
This is one of the most important things you can if you want to be productive. We live in a culture obsessed with personal productivity. But, being prolific is difficult when the workplace is a minefield for diversions that make people less efficient, less productive. We should pay attention to what consumes our attention, and learn the skills to manage that attention. Being able to control where you focus attention, being able to focus intensely on one thing at a time has a more direct advantage in your productivity.
Steve Jobs said, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
Making
time to chill out through rest and relaxation is an important part of
maintaining good health, both are energizing. Frequent periods of “me”
time are good for boosting spirits, enhancing cognitive function, and also the
key tool in working smart.
You are smarter than you think, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Intelligence reveals itself in so many ways that you are often not aware of the ways in which you display intelligence through your diversity of strengths.
In working smart, time is not the problem. Distractions - even small ones - are the culprit. Use undivided attention strategies to limit or eliminate them, so you can use energies more meaningfully and productively.
Working smart is the ability to having better judgment and control as much as you can. Choice is the most powerful control you have in life. You can use choice wisely to protect your focus and time with one of these attention management strategies.
If you are a diligent or passionate about what you do, you may find your workday blurs into your home life and you could forget to clock out. Burnout is real. Working smart requires firm boundaries between your personal and professional time.
Do you know how to overcome those times when you lack enthusiasm for a task? Did you know that motivation is more than desire or willpower? Pinpoint the glitch in your level of enthusiasm and use specific actions to boost your motivation.
