5 Productivity Misconceptions of Multitasking

The ability to multitask has always seemed like something to be proud of. Maybe it’s part of our society’s tendency to equate more with better, but being able to talk on the phone while checking e-mail, filing papers while discussing business with someone in the room, painting your toenails while doing yoga makes people out to be superheroes.  But try answering the phone while continuing to construct an email – you will easily see how the email or the comprehending of the phone conversation suffers – if not both!

As more and more technological tools enter our lives, our attention becomes more and more divided – a phenomenon that Linda Stone, a former VP at Microsoft, termed “continuous partial attention.” We may be working on responding to e-mails, but we also have music playing in the background, have a Twitter feed streaming, have an instant message screen open and are monitoring the phone for text messages.

All of this continuous partial attention leaves us exhausted and at a place where we have accomplished a lot less than we expected. We are frustrated with never being able to shut off work and yet we feel like we never get anything “done”.

On the surface, multitasking looks like an intelligent choice. If you only have an hour free, being able to do as much as you possibly can seems to make sense. Until you find that out it does not!

Unitasking on the other hand, allows you the concentrated effect of focusing on – then fully completing – tasks one at a time. It gives you a non-distracted focus and clarity of task while performing and finishing each set of daily activities.

Here are 5 productivity misconceptions of multitasking:

1. “I will get more done.”
   
   This is by far the biggest misconception. When you continually shift attention (focus) from one activity to the next, to the next, only to circle back and complete the task – you actually get LESS done. It seems like you’re being more productive because you’re being more active by “keeping more plates spinning”. Having the singular focus of attention to complete activities before moving on to the next gives you MORE productivity, because each task is fully completed and checked off as you move to the next activity.
2. “I will be more effective.”
   
   With partial attention given to the tasks you’re performing, there will inevitably be mistakes. (You know what I’m talking about here!) For example, while talking on the phone and checking emails, you may forget to attach that document in the Reply, thus having to go back and resend another email. If you’re having to re-do tasks and activities, you’re actually being less effective – not to mention how “present” you are for the conversation you’re having!
   
3. “I will be more valuable to my company.”
   
   Research shows that heavy multitaskers are less competent at doing several things at once than light multitaskers. In other words, in contrast to almost everything else in your life, the more you multitask, the worse you are at it. If you’re getting partial productivity from most of your efforts, you will be dramatically less valuable to your company
4. “I will be able to save time.”
   
   When you multitask instead of unitask, you switch task rapidly – shifting from one thing to another, interrupting yourself unproductively, and losing time in the process. How many of you have had to make another phone call to get details or clarification again, because you were not giving full attention when you spoke the first time? That’s a time-waster – and embarrassing as well!
5. “I will have less stress because I’m accomplishing so much.”
   
   All research shows that multitasking isn’t just inefficient, it’s stressful. And I find that to be true. In my experience, it is a relief to unitask by doing only one thing at a time. I feel liberated from the strain of keeping so many balls in the air at each moment. It feels reassuring to finish one thing before going to the next.  Just like that “volley ball game” of life I talk about – hitting the balls into someone else’s court – more commonly referred to as “getting it off your plate” or “crossing it off your list”!

With information coming at us through email, RSS, Twitter, smart phones and the like, the ability to perform multiple actions at once, quickly prioritizing tasks and making decisions, would seem to be an important contributor to leadership or executive success.  However, the more this vaunted “skill” comes under scrutiny, the more doubts there are about the correlation between multitasking and good leadership or effective management.

The most recent assault comes from a study published by Stanford University that discovered multitaskers are not better than unitaskers.  Writing about multitaskers in New York Times, Ruth Pennebaker recently stated:

“They don’t focus as well as non-multitaskers. They’re more distractible. They’re weaker at shifting from one task to another and at organizing information. They are, as a matter of fact, worse at multitasking than people who don’t ordinarily multitask.”

There are a number of things you can do to help your brain deal with the significant number of tasks that each of us have to accomplish, but let us start with a simple experiment. This experiment is inspired by Harvard Business Review blogger Peter Bregman’s challenge to himself: stop multitasking for one week. Concentrate on doing only one conscious mental task at a time. See what happens. You will likely gain a lot and lose nothing, despite what everyone has always told you.

Let me know how you do and what your results have been!

 

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